History

Providence Creek Ballet Theater (PCBT) started as a part of the 2004 Learning Enrichment Activities Program (LEAP) located at Providence Creek Academy (PCA), under the direction of Dr. Lydia Creasy Cooper. PCBT began as an after school program teaching introductory ballet. This program and its students quickly bloomed to perform in PCA’s 2004 Holiday Concert and PCBT’s own Performance Concert in June 2005. By the beginning of the 2008 season, PCBT had grown to offer after school classes in various genres with daily classes in ballet and pointe, and weekly classes in tap and jazz. Continued technique classes over the summer began in 2010 and developed into a full five week Summer Intensive Program (2011) under the current Artistic Director, Stephanie Artigliere. From 2013 to the present, PCBT’s Summer Intensive Program has grown to include multiple Guest Artists, a chorography workshop, and a culminating Showcase for daytime attending students. PCBT’s nine month school year program runs Monday thru Saturday and ranges in levels from Creative Movement through to Performance Company to adult fulfillment classes. Our dance curriculum encompasses tap, jazz, hip hop, and lyrical (as of 2012), while maintaining a core and central focus on classical ballet and pointe.

Since the onset of the program, PCBT dancers have continued to perform in PCA’s Holiday Concert (2004 to present) and PCBT’s Summer Concert (2005 to current). In addition to these annual performances, PCBT performed its first storybook ballet, Peter and the Wolf, at the conclusion of the 2008 season. Snow White was set and performed by PCBT dancers as a full length ballet during the 2010 and 2011 season. The summer of 2011, introduced PCBT’s dance community to our current Artistic Director, Stephanie Artigliere, and her vision of growing PCBT dancers beyond the walls of the studio. In December of 2011 and again in 2012, PCBT performed a new production titled Winter Suites. This production showcased PCBT dancers in excerpts from three classical ballets, Swan Lake, Paquita, and The Nutcracker. In March 2012, PCBT debuted at Delaware Dance Festival (DDF) which is attended by over twenty dance studios from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Since 2012, PCBT has commissioned works by regional choreographers for various festivals and performances. These festivals include Delaware Dance Festival (DDF), Philadelphia Youth Dance Fest (PYDF), and Regional Dance America/Northeast (RDA). Attending these festivals and others offer PCBT dancers more opportunities to perform, exposure to multiple dance educators, scholarship classes, and a diversity of dance styles and disciplines. The winter of 2013 brought a new holiday performance, titled The Nutcracker Suite, which has affectionately become a holiday tradition among PCBT’s community of supporters. In subsequent years, this production has grown to include original choreography, additional divertissements, and in 2015, featured First State Ballet Theater’s professional dancer, Ethan Raysor Hunter, partnering PCBT Company dancers.

While PCBT continues to grow, our professional educators stay committed to a curriculum that provides students solid training in classical ballet, additional dance disciplines, theater productions, and etiquette. PCBT’s Company dancers have worked with award winning choreographers, including Danielle Guillermo, Christine Aumiller, and Victoria Silva. Between the dedication of our educators and students, many of PCBT students have continued to be awarded DDF scholarships, accepted into Delaware’s renowned Cab Calloway School for the Arts (middle and high school level), and attended various summer programs nationally.  In June 2016, PCBT evaluated for Regional Dance America and was accepted into the prestigious organization as an intern company. After a re-evaluation at the 2018 RDA/NE Festival in Manchester, NH, PCBT was accepted as a full Performing Company and performed for the first time on this national platform.