The Middle Tennessee Youth Ballet is a pre-professional, 501c(3) nonprofit dance company dedicated to the growth and development of dance students. MTYB is committed to providing cultural enrichment and arts education to the Middle Tennessee Community. Its purpose is to provide highly-motivated dance students with the technical training, artistic development, practical experience, and performance opportunities needed to excel in dance.
Our Mission
Our Vision
TO CREATE an innovative approach to dance education that welcomes diversity and ensures unanimous participation and achievement by all students.
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TO CREATE sustainable, inclusive, and engaging outreach programs that make dance accessible to participants of all racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds.
TO BROADEN community acceptance and appreciation of the performing and cultural arts.
TO EXPAND the purpose of the performing and cultural arts in the education of youth and enrichment of the community.
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TO PROVIDE exceptional quality dance training in a nurturing, value-centered environment.
TO CREATE an innovative approach to dance education that welcomes diversity and ensures unanimous participation and achievement by all students.
Pre-Professional Youth Company
The MTYB Pre-Professional Youth Company is comprised of students ranging from age eight to eighteen from the Middle Tennessee area. These dancers act as ambassadors for MTYB by going out into the community and sharing their love of dance and cultural arts education with others. Many of the summer intensive programs to further their training. Throughout their dance season, MTYB dancers follow a rigorous dance schedule comparable to that of a full time pre-professional program. In addition to a dedicated weekly dance schedule, the youth Company members excel in academics in their school. The MTYB Youth Company participates in a minimum of three performances each dance season.
Scholarship Program
Each year since its inception, MTYB has provided company dancers with scholarships to further his/her education outside their home studio. In August of 2017, MTYB held its first annual End of Summer Dance Intensive with master ballet teachers and professional dancers in the commercial dance industry. This weekend intensive, as well as all master classes and intensives, is provided free of charge to all company dancers as part of the MTYB scholarship program.
Outreach
MTYB offers beginner ballet classes for the students new to ballet. In addition to classical ballet training, students are also taught dance history. The Youth Company offers free performances to schools and libraries in Robertson County and surrounding areas. Our partnership with the Moscow Ballet "Dance with Us" program provided us the opportunity to have a professional ballet dancer perform and speak with students in Robertson County Schools.
Professional Partnerships
MTYB is honored to be an official host of the Moscow Ballet's Great Russian Nutcracker. Dancers from throughout Middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky are invited to audition for youth cast roles in the Great Russian Nutcracker. The Youth Cast performs alongside the Moscow Ballet professional company at the world famous Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
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MTYB is proud to include the AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE ® National Training Curriculum, a breakthrough 9 level program that combines high quality artistic training with the basis of dancer health and child comprehensive set of age-appropriate, outcome-based guidelines to provide the highest quality ballet training to dance students of all ages and skill levels. MTYB Artistic Director, Tiffany Payton is an ABT® Certified Trainer who has completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level 3 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum. Our goal is to present MTYB students for testing with the American Ballet Theater and to become an affiliate school of the American Ballet Theater.
