Michèle Ceballos Michot

Michèle Ceballos Michot is an accomplished dancer, choreographer, artistic director, educator, visual and performance artist. Her dance performance history includes numerous international ballet companies and dance productions.

Born in Manhattan, NYC, Michèle spent her formative years in Bogotá, Colombia where she started dance at the age of six under the exiled dancer Vladimir Volski of the Bolshoi Ballet. A recipient of several scholarships, Michèle studied in New York City at Thalia Mara’s National Academy of Ballet and Theatre Arts, the School of American Ballet, the American Ballet Theatre School the Joffrey Ballet School, and independently with Gabriella Taub Darvash, David Howard, Maggie Black, Finis Jung, Yurgen Snieder and Alexander Mintz.

Michèle joined the Royal Ballet School in London at sixteen, where she spent two years studying under the sponsorship of Margot Fonteyn and toured with the Sadlers Wells Royal Ballet. At eighteen she went on to dance with the Deutsch Oper Am Rhine in Dusseldorf, Germany, and continued her professional work with Ballet Hispanico of New York, Ruth Page’s Chicago Ballet and as a principal dancer with El Ballet Nacional de Colombia.

At twenty-seven, Michèle was the first Colombian Ballerina to represent Colombia at the International Ballet competition in Varna, Bulgaria, and was invited to dance with Alicia Alonso, Director of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba. In 1981 in Bogotá, Colombia, Michèle was a founding member of the Bogotá based Kameliz Danza Contemporanea .

Dance has carried Michèle through life’s challenges as a child and into adulthood. She encountered many situations where she saw dancers rejected from dance studies because of body type, stereotyped because of nationality or gender, or unable to study dance or attend dance performances because of money.

In 1989, Michèle came to Phoenix,AZ , as assistant to Mikhail Lavrovsky, principal dancer with the Bolshoi Ballet, who was guest teaching and performing for Ballet Arizona. She stayed to live in Phoenix, guest teaching and choreographing throughout the Valley.

In 1994, Michèle was introduced to international performance artist and writer, Guillermo Gomez Pena for a project at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts.
The project titled “The Temple of Confessions” was presented there, and toured the USA. Michèle became a collaborating partner and participated in the founding of La Pocha Nostra, a Mexico/San Francisco based international performance troupe. La Pocha’s performance and installation work, which explores cross-cultural issues and North/South relations, has been presented around the world. Identity and place has always been a base for Michele’s work, who is also known as Michelle Ceballos, Michel Cote and MICO.

In 1994, Michèle started Opendance, an urban-based dance company and arts and educational outreach company. Opendance combines classical dance with other movement styles, art and interactive dance forms, dancers and non-dancers, no age limit, shape, gender, economic or technical level, and to the community, making art accessible and affordable for all.

Opendance, in order to apply for grants, to facilitate the arts accessible to the community and pay the teaching and performing artists, became a non-profit 501 (c)(3). Opendance was listed on the Artist Roster of the Arizona Commission on the Arts from 1994-2012, were nominated in 2006, 2007, 2012 for the AZ Governors Arts Awards and for the Arts and Business Council award, and received the Creighton School District Partner Award in 2006 & 2012.

In 2012 Opendance added AZ to the company name. OpendanceAZ offers Arts & Educational programs, which are arts & interactive dance based, to schools, community and senior centers, made possible through grants and donations. Michèle and OpendanceAZ Company members offer $5.00, free or by donation, dance classes, in all styles of movement, throughout the Valley. The locations where classes are held are in collaboration with local arts and retail businesses, mall’s and private dance studios. For more information and resume contact mcm@opendanceaz.org