Meet your Amazing Summer Intensive Instructors for 2025!
One of the best ways to learn something well is to learn from an expert.
SCB is bringing a group of supportive, fun, and talented experts to Billings to work with you.
Scroll down past bios for the sample intensive schedules.
Kelsey Dorr was trained under the Vaganova Curriculum until graduating High School, after which she continued her ballet education at Boston Ballet, Anaheim Ballet, and Colorado Ballet. She later joined Anaheim Ballet as a soloist while also performing with Pasadena Dance Theater. She has danced with the Mikhailovsky Ballet of St. Petersburg in Flames of Paris, and in Sleeping Beauty with American Ballet Theater, choreographed and coached by Alexey Ratmansky, and was the main ballet dancer for One Direction’s music video, “Steal My Girl.” Kelsey is currently a soloist with Inland Pacific Ballet.
In addition to her performing career, Kelsey has been teaching for schools all around Southern California, and many of her students have competed and placed in YAGP. Her background in Pilates and body conditioning has given her students a well-rounded physical approach to ballet. This past summer, Kelsey was accepted to the ARTof program under William Forsythe in Switzerland, giving her even more experience in developing the contemporary side of ballet, which she can now share with her students.
Kirsten Cooper is a freelance dance teacher and choreographer. While dancing professionally in Los Angeles, she began assisting Rhonda Miller, and teaching at L.A. DanceForce, which sparked her passion for teaching. Kirsten moved to Seattle and established her teaching career in the Pacific Northwest, focusing on jazz, contemporary, lyrical, and theater dance styles. She has taught at numerous different suburban studios and has taught at the Pacific Northwest Ballet summer intensive for many years. She loves teaching ballerinas! Kirsten has journeyed to Texas, Montana, California, and Bulgaria to teach, and recently finished her Barre Eclipse conditioning certification.
Marisa Roth, Owner and Director of the Northwest Ballet School & Company, is a lifer when it comes to ballet. She began dance at the young age of 3 with the NWB and continued training through college, where she graduated from Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania with a BA in Dance with a Teaching/Choreography Concentration. Marisa danced with the Lake Erie Ballet Company for three years, performing lead roles in ballets such as Nutcracker, Coppélia, Giselle and Serenade before returning to the Flathead to teach. She took over the Northwest Ballet in January 2007, continuing to grow the program to offer the following dance disciplines: Ballet, Pointe, Pas de Deux, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Hip-Hop, Cheer, Musical Theatre, Contemporary/Lyrical, Ballroom, and Breakdancing. Her Company performs two shows a year with their annual Nutcracker (36th this season) and spring Mother's Day performances (45th this season), which have included Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Alice in Wonderland, and Phantom of the Opera. Additionally, both branches of the Northwest Ballet School perform annual end-of-year Student Showcase Recitals; Kalispell in their 48th, and Whitefish in their 23rd. Marisa served for seven years as Secretary on the Board of the Montana Dance Arts Association (MDAA) and four years as President of the organization. She has taught dance in over eight different cities throughout the state of Montana and has had alumni dancers in colleges throughout the U.S. including Montana, Utah, California, and Arizona. Marisa holds her Pre-Primary through Level 3 teaching certification from American Ballet Theatre's (ABT's) National Training Curriculum in New York City since 2018, after being awarded a $3,000 Teacher's Fellowship from MDAA at that Spring's Workshop. She has performed as a member of AzureVision Dance Collective (founded in 2005), a Modern Dance Company in the Flathead Valley. The past three Nutcracker seasons Marisa has been chosen as the local studio liaison for San Diego Ballet Company's production here in Kalispell with the Glacier Symphony. She's had the privilege of working with dance students from almost a dozen different dance studios throughout the Valley while rehearsing all the choreography each season. Marisa is also active in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) as the Women's Day Class's Substitute Teaching Leader. Marisa and her husband Michael live in beautiful Creston, MT, near the Flathead River.
Natalie Desch, a BFA graduate of the Juilliard School and an MFA graduate of the University of Washington, performed for five seasons with the Limón Dance Company and eleven seasons with Doug Varone and Dancers in NYC. She additionally danced in various productions at the Metropolitan Opera and other regional opera companies–Minnesota Opera, Opera Colorado, Palm Beach Opera, Longleaf Opera (NC), Lincoln Center Institute (NYC). From 2005-2012 she taught at Hunter College (City University of New York) and has also been a visiting faculty member at Weber State University (UT), the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, and the Beijing Dance
Academy. Additionally, she has taught for the following summer festivals: Doug Varone and Dancers, the Limón Dance Company, UNCSA, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, the Bates Dance Festival, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, and the Canadian Contemporary Dance Theater, among others. Natalie has restaged the works of José Limón, Doug Varone, Jirí Kylián, and Daniel Charon on performing groups around the world, and her choreography has been presented at venues throughout the US. In 2014 Natalie relocated to Salt Lake City, UT, and began teaching at Ballet West Academy, Westminster College, Utah Valley University, and Salt Lake Community College.
Natalie joined the University of Utah’s School of Dance as an Assistant Professor in the fall of 2019.