Mission and History

Pasadena Dance The­atre strives to pro­vide clas­si­cal and inno­v­a­tive con­tem­po­rary chore­og­ra­phy through pro­fes­sional dance per­for­mance and to offer a high cal­iber of dance train­ing through its conservatory.

In 1958 Eve­lyn LeMone founded Pasadena Dance The­atre at the Pasadena Play­house. Today PDT offers pro­fes­sional per­for­mances and train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to the com­mu­nity through its com­pany, con­ser­va­tory, and out­reach programs.

PDT thrills audi­ences with its annual pro­duc­tion of The Nut­cracker, as well as full-scale pro­duc­tions of clas­si­cal bal­lets such as A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, Grad­u­a­tion Ball, and La Fille Mal Gardee, and new works like Cyn­thia Young’s Beauty and the Beast.

Along with its clas­si­cal reper­toire, PDT presents excit­ing con­tem­po­rary chore­og­ra­phy from estab­lished and emerg­ing chore­o­g­ra­phers. In its Con­ver­sa­tion With the Chore­o­g­ra­pher series works by Scott Put­man, Dou­glas Nielsen, Bill Evans, Lau­rence Blake, Jes­samyn Lawrence, Andrea Bea­som, and Iris Ander­sen have chal­lenged audi­ences with bold new con­cepts and inno­v­a­tive aes­thet­ics of movement.