Katy Pyle is a genderqueer lesbian dancer, choreographer and teacher. Having graduated from UNCSA’s high school dance program in 1999, they went on to study at Hollins University, graduating summa cum laude in 2002. Pyle then moved to New York City, where they danced in the companies of John Jasperse, Jennifer Monson, Faye Driscoll, and many other projects. From 2009-2014, Pyle was a lead performer and collaborator for Young Jean Lee Theater Company, touring in “”Church”” and developing and touring “”Untitled Feminist Show,”” for which they were also the Dance Captain. Pyle founded Ballez in 2011 to return to their love of ballet on their own terms.
Ballez pushes classical ballet towards an inclusive future by centering the experiences of queer, lesbian, trans, and gender non-conforming people within the creation of large-scale story ballets, open classes, and public conversations. Major story ballets: “The Firebird, a Ballez,” Danspace Project, Spring & Fall 2013, and “Sleeping Beauty & the Beast,” La Mama, Spring 2016. Their next story ballet, “”Giselle of Loneliness,”” premieres June 10, 2021 at The Joyce Theater. Pyle has taught Ballez at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Gibney Dance, Princeton, Sarah Lawrence, Yale, Movement Research, CounterPULSE, NYU, Bowdoin College, Whitman College, Beloit University, and Slippery Rock University. Pyle currently teaches at Eugene Lang College at The New School, offers Pro Ballez classes on Zoom, and outdoors in Brower Park. ballez.org
Ballet
Pro Ballez Class is a ballet class for professional dancers with ballet history to reclaim the practice and performance of ballet for their own joy, pleasure, and artistry. Dancers move through a thorough and efficient Janet Panetta-style barre while being encouraged to play, contemplate, and discover how to bring more of themselves to the exercises, and then move to center to perform adagios, waltzes, pirouettes, petit and grand allegro for themselves and each other.