Meet Our Faculty
Alexander Pandiscio
Founder
Artistic Director
Principal Teacher
Mr. Pandiscio has taught ballet to dancers of all ages in the Houston area since 2004.
His unique background in kinesiology and sports medicine has made him a sought-out teacher, especially for dancers recovering from injury, young students going en pointe, adult students, and advanced dancers preparing for competition.
Mr. Pandiscio began studying ballet with renowned teacher Jacqueline Cronsberg at Ballet Workshop of New England, and later studied on full scholarship at American Ballet Theater, Royal Danish Ballet, and San Francisco Ballet Schools. Mr. Pandiscio danced with the Massachusetts Youth Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and Houston Ballet.
As a member of Houston Ballet (2003-2010) he danced featured roles in works by Ben Stevenson, Stanton Welch, George Balanchine, and Jiri Kylian. In 2007, Mr. Pandiscio joined the teaching staff at Uptown Dance Centre in Houston, TX, and later became both Ballet Master and Company Manager for Uptown Dance Company. Mr. Pandiscio graduated summa cum laude from Rice University with a Bachelor of Arts in Kinesiology (Sports Medicine) and a minor in Business. While at Rice, he was the recipient of the Brotzen Award, a fellowship that enabled him to spend a summer in Vienna, Austria studying ballet kinesiology with master teacher Judith Reyn-Stroux. After graduating college, he completed the year-long Teacher Training Program at Canada’s National Ballet School, where taught in all levels of the Professional Ballet Program. While there, he received the 2015 Betty Oliphant Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Following his return to Houston, Mr. Pandiscio joined the faculty at Houston Ballet Academy, teaching extensively throughout the Lower School, Boys Program, and Adult Program, and also serving as a liaison between artistic staff and the body conditioning staff. In 2018, he earned a Certificate with Distinction in Nonprofit Leadership from the Leadership Institute for Nonprofit Executives (LINE) at Rice University. In 2019, Mr. Pandiscio opened the Bayou City Ballet School, realizing a decades-long dream of creating a professional ballet training program in a small school setting.
Nao Kusuzaki
Advanced Ballet/Pointe
Nao Kusuzaki was born in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, and began her ballet lessons at three years old at Yatsuzuka Ballet school. After moving to the U.S. at age 10, she continued her training with The Washington Ballet School and Boston Ballet School. Nao became a member of Corps de Ballet with Boston Ballet in 2001. In 2004, she joined Houston Ballet, and was promoted to Soloist in 2009.
She has danced numerous leading roles in both classical and contemporary repertoire. Some of her featured roles include: The Sugarplum Fairy and The Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, Nikiya in La Bayadere, Madame Butterfly in Madame Butterfly, Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty, Odette and Odile in Swan Lake, Jiri Kylian’s Petite Mort, Sinfonietta, and Falling Angels, William Forsythe’s In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room, Christopher Wheeldon’s Rush, and Mark Morris’s Pacific.
Nao is also active in the Houston community through producing Dance for Hope, a benefit concert in response to the Japan earthquake of 2011, co-creating TSURU with Asia Society Texas Center in 2015, and directing and dancing The 45th Anniversary Ballet Performance celebrating Houston and Chiba Sister City Relations, which premiered in July 2017. Nao is the Founder of Creative Minds Collaborative Inc., a nonprofit organization which seeks to create meaning across artists, educators, and supporters of the arts.
Madison Turner
Children's Ballet
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As a child, Madison Turner trained at the Houston Ballet Academy before going to college and pursuing a career in Musical Theatre. From 2010- 1019, Madison lived in New York and worked as a dancer performing in international and national tours, cruise lines, and regional theatres. Some of her favorite credits include Oklahoma!, A Chorus Line, and Beauty and the Beast.
In 2019, she returned to her hometown Houston, TX to work in theatre administration and still enjoys teaching dance as a creative outlet.
Madison's favorite ages to teach are 3–5-year-olds and she specializes in Creative Movement, Pre-Ballet, and Primary Dance.
After teaching for four years at Claire School of Dance in the Heights, she is excited to join Bayou City Ballet School!
Allison Miller
Advanced Ballet and Pointe
Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida, Allison Miller recently retired from a 16-year career with the Houston Ballet. Growing up, she studied ballet in Ellenton, Florida with Diane Partington and at age 15 attended the North Carolina School of the Arts. She joined the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company in 2004 and Houston Ballet in 2006.
At Houston Ballet, Allison rose to the rank of First Soloist. She danced soloist and leading roles in many ballets, including Ballo della Regina (Balanchine), Serenade (Balanchine), La Sylphide (Bournonville), Kitri in Don Quixote (Stevenson), Swanhilda in Coppelia (Stevenson), as well as Clara and The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker (Stevenson and Welch). Allison is excited to pass on what she has learned to the next generation of dancers through teaching and coaching.
Carol Smitherman Anglin
Ballet and Modern (Horton)
Carol Smitherman Anglin is a renowned teacher with an illustrious career spanning over four decades. As the founding Artistic Director of the Louisiana Dance Foundation and Louisiana Dance Theatre, Louisiana Dance Theatre became an Honor Company under her leadership. Throughout her career, Carol has been dedicated to sharing her passion for dance education, including teaching over 40 classes per week to students from diverse backgrounds. Many of her students have gone on to achieve professional dance careers. Her studio, Carol Anglin Dancenter, Inc., played a pivotal role in nurturing dancers, teachers, choreographers, composers, and fostering a vibrant dance community in Shreveport. As a dance presenter from 1982-2016, she produced more than 600 master classes, dance festivals, and performances in Shreveport. Carol's commitment to community outreach and collaboration is evident in her partnerships with over fifty organizations and educational institutions in north Louisiana.
As a master teaching artist in Ballet and Modern, Carol's influence includes the United States, Russia, Europe, and Canada, making her the first American to teach Modern Dance at the School of Marina Semyonova in Moscow. Her achievements also include being one of only 18 international teachers accepted to NYU to train with esteemed directors of the Paris Opera Ballet School, Mme. Claude Bessy and Serge Golovine. Carol has attended the USA IBC Teachers Courses in Classical Ballet, completed the Intermediate and Advanced Horton Pedagogy Courses at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, and engaged with the National Dance Educator Organization's Annual Conferences. She also holds a Master's in Fine Arts (MFA) from the University of Oklahoma. In 2018, she was appointed as a National Adjudicator by Regional Dance America's Board of Directors.
Currently based in Houston, Carol continues to inspire students through her teaching engagements with notable institutions such as Dance Du Coeur, Ad Deum Dance Company, University of Houston, Houston Ballet Academy, Hunter Dance Center, Open Dance Project, Bayou City Ballet, Feijoo Ballet, Juxtapose Dance, Ft. Bend Dance Academy, among others.
Lindsay Cortner
Contemporary and Adult Ballet
Lindsay Cortner has been teaching Ballet, Modern, Contemporary, and Creative Movement for the past twelve years. As a young adult, she began teaching Jazz and Horton-style Modern dance to intermediate and advanced-level students at Uptown Dance Centre, where she started her own formal dance training as a teenager. While at Uptown, she eventually came to specialize in early childhood dance education. She performed with Uptown Dance Company for eight seasons, simultaneously guesting for two consecutive seasons with Sandra Organ Dance Company, spent a year dancing for Psophonia, and currently freelances in performance projects with Pilot Dance Project, Frame Dance Productions, Juxtapose Dance Collective, Jennifer Mabus, and Rebecca French, among others. Lindsay has danced professionally in Houston for a decade.
Lindsay currently teaches pre-professional dancers at the Carver Magnet High School of Aldine ISD, and instructs toddler and pre-K children at SEARCH’s House of Tiny Treasures, a satellite program via The Hope Project. Lindsay also teaches public Forrest Yoga classes to dancers and non-dancers alike, as well as offering yoga instruction to private clients.
Firat Kazbek Özsoy
Guest Faculty (Advanced Ballet)
Firat was born into a family of artists and started studying ballet at Hacettepe University National Conservatory in Ankara, Turkey. He is a graduate of the Hungarian Dance Academy in Budapest Hungary. He graduated with honors and moved to the United States at 19 years old. He danced with Delta Festival Ballet and worked with Fernando Bujones at Texas Christian University. He was invited to join the Houston Ballet under the direction of Ben Stevenson and Stanton Welch where he performed the roles of Ptolomy in Cleopatra, Jester in Cinderella, Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland, Gopak in Nutcracker, Duet in Five Poems, Rooster in La Fille Mal Gardee, John in Peter Pan, Dr. Suess in Touched, Coyote in Tales of Texas, Pas de Cinq in Suite en Blanc, Jaguar in Fire Bird, Soloist in Ketubah, Soloist in Miraculous Mandarin. His repertoire includes roles in Dracula, Sleeping Beauty, Snow Maiden, Coppelia, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Peer Gynt, and Romeo and Juliet, Manon, Gloria, Second Before the Ground, The Shadow, Madame Butterfly, Divergence, Giselle, La Sylphide, Merry Widow, Etudes and Graduation Ball.
Mr. Özsoy teaches ballet to students and professionals at the University of Houston and guest teaches nationally and internationally. Fırat is a Professional Audio Engineer and Sound Designer working in theatre, dance, live concerts and film.
Connor Walsh
Guest Faculty (Advanced Ballet)
Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Connor Walsh began his training at the age of seven under the direction of his mother Constance Walsh. He has trained at The Kirov Academy of Ballet, The Harid Conservatory, and Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, where he was awarded the Rudolf Nureyev Foundation Scholarship and the Ben Stevenson Scholarship award.
In 2004, Walsh joined Houston Ballet’s company as a member of the corps de ballet. Connor was quickly promoted to soloist in 2006 and then to principal dancer in 2007.
He has danced major roles in numerous full-length ballets including John Cranko’s Onegin (Lensky) and The Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio), Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon (Des Grieux) and Mayerling (Prince Rudolf), John Nuemier’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Puck), Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Fille mal Gardée (Colas), Ronald Hynd’s The Merry Widow (Camille), Ben Stevenson’s Don Quixote (Basilio), The Sleeping Beauty (Prince Florimund), and Dracula (Fredrick), Sir David Bintley’s Aladdin (Aladdin) and The Tempest (Ferdinand), Trey McIntyre’s Peter Pan (Merman), and Stanton Welch’s Swan Lake (Siegfried), Marie (Count Axel Fersen and King Louis XVI), Madame Butterfly (Pinkerton), La Sylphide (James), and Cinderella (The Prince and Dandini).
In recent years Connor Walsh has expanded his reach into teaching, coaching and choreographing. In 2015, along with fellow Houston Ballet company members Oliver Halkowich and Melody Walsh, Walsh founded REACH - a choreographic project that raises money for arts education in schools. Following the success of REACH, Walsh and his colleagues were invited to create a world premiere, entitled What We Keep, for Houston Ballet in spring of 2018. Walsh enjoys teaching, coaching and choreographing as well as participating in many forms of dance. He is also a soccer fanatic as well as food enthusiast.
Dawn Scannell
Guest Faculty (Advanced Ballet)
Dawn Scannell was born on Long Island, NY and grew up in Fort Lauderdale, FL. She received her training from Vitoria Leigh, James Franklin, and Ruth Petrinovic. Dawn joinede Houston Ballet in 1985, rose to the rank of Principal Ballerina, and retired from the stage in 2001. Throughout her career, she performed leading rolls in both full-length classical and contemporary work, and has danced for esteemed choreographers such as Sir Kenneth MacMilan, Jiri Kylian, Paul Taylor, James Kudelka, Stanton Welch, Ben Stevenson, Christopher Bruce, Ronald Hynd, John McFall, Trey McIntyre, Lila York, Natalie Weir, and Helgi Tomasson. Many of these choreographers created roles specifically for her.
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In 2006, Dawn was invited by Stanton Welch to become Ballet Master for Houston Ballet, staging Ben STevenson’s full-length Don Quixote. In this role she taught classes for the Company, as well as for Houston Ballet II and the Houston Ballet Academy. She staged the work of Welch, Ben Stevenson, Christopher Bruce, and others. She also worked closely with repetiteurs in both contemporary, and classical styles. Dawn’s trademarks are her attention to detail and her ability to recreate a choreographer’s vision. Her care in fulfilling the artistic integrity of choreography from classical to contemporary has allowed her to stage and coach effectively for numerous companies: Paris Opera Ballet, Royal Ballet School, Staatsballett Berlin, Royal Swedish Ballet, Queensland Ballet, Houston Ballet, and companies all throughout the US. In coaching principal dancers to young trainees, Dawn has gained a reputation for demanding precision and technique, but also inspiring and cultivating artistry, and emotional nuance.
Linnar Looris
Guest Faculty (Advanced Ballet)
Mr. Looris brings a wealth of experience to Bayou City Ballet School, having danced professionally for eighteen years with Estonian National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, and Houston Ballet. He is currently Artistic Director of Estonian National Ballet.
In addition to his stellar teaching and artistic qualifications, Mr. Looris has many invaluable insights to share with our students regarding professional company life and what directors are looking for in dancers. As Artistic Advisor he provides private coaching and mentorship to aspiring dancers.