Director Profiles

Cyn­thia Young, Artis­tic Director

Artis­tic Direc­tor Cyn­thia Young received her for­mal train­ing with the San Fran­cisco Bal­let School and the Uni­ver­sity of Utah. Join­ing Bal­let West she rose to become the youngest prin­ci­pal dancer with a major Amer­i­can bal­let com­pany, tour­ing exten­sively through­out the United States and Europe, per­form­ing a diver­si­fied clas­si­cal reper­toire which included Cin­derella, Swan Lake, Cop­pelia, Ser­e­nade, and Les Syl­phide in addi­tion to mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary works by Michael Smuin, Bill Evens, John But­ler and Robert Gladstein.

Ms. Young has been affil­i­ated with PDT since 1981. Appointed Artis­tic Direc­tor in 1996, Young founded the Con­ser­va­tory located at the cur­rent facil­ity on Locust Street and reor­ga­nized the Com­pany and school under the non­profit sta­tus.  In 1999, Young opened the Stu­dio The­atre, an inti­mate per­form­ing space for new works and con­cert per­for­mances. One year later, Young launched ‘A Con­ver­sa­tion with a Chore­o­g­ra­pher’ to help audi­ences develop a stronger under­stand­ing of con­tem­po­rary work. In 2007, she, by pro­duc­ing the first Mas­ter Dance­Maker pro­gram, gave con­tem­po­rary and clas­si­cal chore­o­g­ra­phers an oppor­tu­nity to cre­ate new work in a chal­leng­ing atmosphere.

Young has cre­ated many orig­i­nal works for the com­pany and has been the recip­i­ent of numer­ous awards and hon­ors for her chore­og­ra­phy.  In addi­tion to many con­tem­po­rary works, Young chore­o­graphs the annual favorite The Nut­cracker and has chore­o­graphed and pro­duced an orig­i­nal Cin­derella and Beauty and the Beast, to name a few.

Ms. Young has taught mas­ter classes and chore­o­graphed for com­pa­nies through­out the South­west and West­ern United States. Young chaired the Dance pro­gram for the Cal­i­for­nia State Sum­mer School of the Arts from 1996 to 2009. Cur­rently Ms. Young holds the posi­tion of Asso­ciate Dean in the Sharon Dis­ney Lund School of Dance at the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of the Arts.

Lau­rence Blake, Asso­ciate Artis­tic Director

Lau­rence Blake grad­u­ated from the North Car­olina School of the Arts and joined Jof­frey II and then the Jof­frey Bal­let, work­ing with notable chore­o­g­ra­phers Glen Tet­ley, Sir Fred­er­ick Ash­ton, Ger­ald Arpino, Robert Jof­frey and Twyla Tharp.

After mov­ing to Los Ange­les, he was a guest artist with the Pacific North­west Bal­let, Cal­i­for­nia Bal­let and the Nevada Dance The­atre. Mr. Blake has set orig­i­nal works through­out the West and has been res­i­dent chore­o­g­ra­pher for the Los Ange­les Cham­ber Bal­let, Hawaii Bal­let The­atre and Pasadena Dance The­atre. His chore­og­ra­phy has been nom­i­nated for numer­ous awards, includ­ing the Lester Hor­ton Dance Award in 1992, 1993, 1995 and 1997.

In 1998 he received the Regional Dance Amer­ica National Chore­og­ra­phy Plan Award for his bal­let Hol­berg Suite. Mr. Blake has appeared in sev­eral tele­vi­sion dance spe­cials, and has been on the dance fac­ulty of the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of the Arts since 1982.

He was the recip­i­ent of an indi­vid­ual artist grant from the Pasadena Cul­tural Affairs Divi­sion for his col­lab­o­ra­tive work with Pasadena com­poser Cary Belling and sev­eral local musicians.