Jocelyn Buchanan
Associate Artistic Director
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Ms. Buchanan received her training from Pamela Meadows in Arizona and Marie Vegh of Marin Ballet. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Dance from Arizona State University. She has performed with The Martha Graham Company and with The Murray Louis Company. She has performed and been on the faculty of dancing in Nicolas Pacaña's Summers Eve. Audiences will remember her from her interpretations of Atlanta Festival Ballet's "Arabian" in The Nutcracker and the Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty. As a faculty member she has been very instrumental in building the confidence and dance appreciation of the students in the open school program. In her position as Associate Artistic Director; she works with the Artistic Directors in planning, scheduling, casting and rehearsing the ballet productions and bringing them to the stage; as well as guiding, reviewing and overseeing the placement and development of students in the ballet program.

 

 

Giselle DiBlasi
Director of Operations

Ms. DiBlasi is originally from West Columbia, Texas.  She studied with Margo and Dennis Marshall in Houston, and was a member of City Ballet of Houston, a Regional Honor Company for five years.  She attended several intensive summer workshops with the Boston Ballet, Houston Ballet, and The Joffrey Ballet in New York and in San Antonio.  Ms. DiBlasi received her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Ballet Performance from the University of Oklahoma.  There she studied with Mary Margaret Holt, Dennis Marshall, Allan Kinzie, and Donn Edwards.  She was chosen as a member of the Oklahoma Festival Ballet, and had the opportunity to perform such ballets as Napoli, Balanchine’s Serenade, Sleeping Beauty Act III, Excerpts from Paquita, The Nutcracker, Le Spectre de la Rose, and Carmina Burana.  In addition, she was selected to tour with the company to Nice, France in 2000 and Cancun, Mexico in 2002.  Audiences will remember her for her portrayal of Clara in Artistic Director Gregory Aaron’s holiday classic The Nutcracker as well dancing the Pas de Deux as Princess of the Sea in the US premier of Nicolas Pacana and Gregory Aaron’s The Little Mermaid.  In 2004 she danced the charmingly delightful Beauty in Beauty & the Beast..
In 2004 Ms. DiBlasi was promoted to Director of Operations.  Her responsibilities include handling student accounts as well as the day to day operations of the school and company.  Articulate and sure of her technique, as a faculty member with Atlanta Festival Ballet

. Hayley hails from California where she began her ballet training at the age of 2.  She is a graduate of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem.   After graduating from NCSA, Hayley continued her training at Nutmeg Conservatory of the Arts in Torrington, Connecticut, where she taught classes and served as rehearsal assistant.  Hayley has an extensive and varied ballet background and has received training in Balanchine, Legat, and Vaganova techniques.  She has attended such well-known summer intensives as Nutmeg Conservatory, Rock School of Pennsylvania Ballet, San Francisco Ballet School, and Russian Ballet Society in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Hayle comes to Atlanta from Orlando, Florida, where she has most recently been a character performer at Walt Disney World.