Meet Alison Jaramillo | Ballet teacher, choreographer, and studio owner

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alison Jaramillo and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alison, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
Ballet training is life training! I never realized this until I had my own school but I should have recognized this when I realized the impact dance has had on my own life. Ballet is an activity that uses discipline and is based on respect. Dancers learn to respect their teachers, their classmates, and most importantly, themselves. They also learn time management, how to be kind to themselves, how to work hard, and remember so many details all at the same time. Our students must manage their school work as well as classes and rehearsals and they learn to do this at a very young age while becoming high achievers as well. Mental health is such an important issue, especially post-COVID. We strive to provide an environment where each child is important and each student is appreciated for who they are. And ballet training has been proven to make students smarter-we have six young ladies graduating this year and 5 of them are planning on going to medical school eventually.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I started as a dance student at age 7 and at age 11 I changed to a studio that had lots of performing experience and more contemporary work. I think this helped set me apart from my classmates. I joined Dayton Ballet at age 19 and got to perform classical ballets, a lot of works by Septime Webre, a lot of Joffrey works, and some Balanchine pieces as well.  I also danced with Oregon Ballet Theatre navigating working with a difficult director, and then I danced with David Taylor Dance Theatre for 5 years. Although I was one of the principal dancers and taught in the school I was unexpectedly let go in 2003 because I didn’t “seem very happy”. I thought my world had ended! A month later my mom and I started Littleton Ballet Academy because some of our students believed in us and wanted to continue to train with us, We started classes in a rented ballroom for a little over a year until we found our own space in January of 2005. And even then, it took a while to grow the pre-ballet and beginner classes. But we offered performance opportunities right away because we feel that is such an important component. We began our youth company in 2011. One of the other important things we did was change our curriculum in 2009. We began teaching the CPYB curriculum created by Marcia Dale Weary and that has been life-changing. It is such an amazing curriculum and the results have been wonderful for our studio. We also are big believers in discipline and building relationships with our families. We realize that during busy performance and competition seasons, we see the dancers more than their parents do and we take that very seriously. We understand that we are helping raise them and that what we do matters a great deal.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Favorite spots in Denver include the Denver Botanic Gardens both in Denver and in Littleton, and the Denver Center for Performing Arts (I LOVE musicals, theatre, classical music, and ballets). And my favorite restaurant is The Tavern in Littleton. And of course a visit to Tattered Cover Book Store. (I love to read!)

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Thanks to our amazing staff and faculty at Littleton Ballet Academy including my mom Bobbie Jaramillo who is almost 80 and still teaches 4 days a week. We could not do everything without our AMAZING team!

Website: www.littletonballetacademy.org

Instagram: @littletonballetacademy

Facebook: Littleton Ballet Academy

Youtube: @LittletonDance

Image Credits
Candidly Created and Lucinda Maughan Armstrong