Staff

Gillian Barton - Principal

A member of the Royal Academy of Dance and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), Gillian has danced with companies in the UK, Europe, the Far East and the USA.

Born in Glasgow, she has spent many years teaching and dancing in the United States and was the director of the Mira Mesa Ballet Company. In 1991, she returned to Scotland and founded the Ballet West School and company. She choreographed the early productions of the company. Gillian also has extensive experience working in film and television, on the Michael Caton-Jones film, "Rob Roy" and on "Mrs Brown" a film starring Dame Judi Dench and Ballet West patron, Billy Connolly.

Gillian is the founder of Ballet West and has steered the company through its development from early beginnings to the present day.

Daniel Job - Guest Ballet Master

Daniel Job, from Belgium, has been working as Guest Ballet Master at Ballet West since September 2011. He trained at the School of American Ballet as well as with the Royal Danish Ballet and Paris Opera. As a dancer, he worked with companies all over Europe including Deutsche Oper Berlin under Kenneth MacMillan and Les Ballet de Marseille under Roland Petit. At the height of his dancing career, he worked with world famous choreographers, Rudolf Nureyev, George Balanchine and John Cranko.

He has travelled all over the world as a guest ballet master and choreographer with The Norwegian National Ballet, The Scottish Ballet, Universal Ballet Academy (South Korea), Asami Maki Ballet (Japan) to name just a few. He is a guest teacher for many academies and schools around the world, including Brussels International Ballet School and Norwegian National Ballet School, as well as for several classical and contemporary companies including English National Ballet.

Noriko Ohara OBE Guest Teacher

Noriko is a former Principal Ballerina with Scottish Ballet. She was born and trained in Japan and came to London in 1974 to dance with the New London Ballet and subsequently the London Festival Ballet as Principal Dancer. She joined Scottish Ballet in 1976 and since then has danced all of the major roles in the company's repertoire. Noriko has received critical acclaim throughout the world, not only for performances in the great 19th century classics such as "Swan Lake" but also as an accomplished actress in the more modern, dramatic ballets, notably as Juliet in John Cranko's masterpiece "Romeo and Juliet". Noriko danced Hippolyta in Robert Coham's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", the title role in "Anna Karenina" and Carabosse in "The Sleeping Beauty".

Noriko is regularly invited to join the jury of the prestigious Prix de Lausanne competition in Switzerland. She was awarded and honorary OBE in the 1997 New Years honours list for her services to dance.

Jordi Guitart - Head of Jazz

Jordi Guitart was born in Venezuela but lived most of his life in Spain before moving to England. Together with his wife, Nicola, he runs the Guitart School of Performing Arts in Cambridge.

His past work involves television variety shows in Spain and the UK and he has performed lead roles in "West Side Story" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" as well as dancing, teaching and choreographic work throughout Europe.

Recently, he has performed in "Fame" in Oslo, "Saturday Night Fever" at the London Palladium and "La Cava" at the Victoria Palace Theatre.

He has been head of jazz since 1995 and choreographed the Ballet West productions of "Fame" & "Soundtrack", the jazz part of "Upstage". He also co-directed and choreographed "Love Central" in 2008.

Nick Fogarty - Vocal Coach

Nick is a vocal coach, author and composer. As a song writer he has amassed over sixty releases in his career, and as an artist had two major record deals, one with RCA and the second Warner Bros, some of his biggest successes were in Germany where he also performed with the Berlin Philharmonic.

As a vocal coach he prefers to work with inexperienced and college level students, because this is where great singers are nurtured or (if they fall into the wrong hands) destroyed.

Some of Nick's pupils are now making a splash in the west end... Leanne Jones, William Peaco, Adam Hills and Colin Charles to name a few, but even though he does work occasionally with professionals, he finds it much more rewarding to help created a star than reshape one.

As an author Nick has just work-shopped his first musical CHARIOT at Danceworks in London. Where it has caught the eye and imagination of some very influential people in the industry. He is now is the process of getting it produced... this will be a milestone in his career as he single-handedly has written all the music, lyrics and book. Nick is Musical Director at Ballet West and has written script for shows such as Upstage. He also wrote "Love Central", which he is co directing with his friend and colleague Jordi Guitart.

Sara-Maria Smith - Senior Principal Dancer

Genée International Ballet Competition medallist, Sara-Maria Smith, has had contracts with all of the major British ballet companies: The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Scottish Ballet. She trained fully at Ballet West and has danced principal roles in all of the company's ballet productions. She has also guested in the UK and abroad.

Her film credits include "Rob Roy" with Liam Neeson and Jessica Lange, "Mrs Brown" with Billy Connolly and Judi Dench, and "Breaking the Waves" directed by Lars von Trier. She has appeared on numerous television programmes including Blue Peter and more recently the BBC series "Dannsa". She has also danced in music videos and taken part in photo shoots with various magazines and newspapers including Hello and Vanity Fair.

Since the birth of her daughter in 2009, she has been coaching students for all the major ballet competitions including the Genee International Ballet Competition, the Phyllis Bedells Bursary and Varna and was recently appointed Assistant Artistic Director of Ballet West.

She toured with Ballet West to China in 2010, performing The Sugar Plum Fairy in "The Nutcracker" and Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" in 2011, including performance at the Shanghai Grand Theatre & Beijing Poly Theatre.

Jonathan Barton - Senior Principal Dancer/Teacher

Following his Highly Commended result in the RAD advanced examination; Jonathan was awarded the academy's Solo Seal. He has partnered his sister, Sara-Maria, in numerous Ballet West productions and as guest artists in productions in Malta, Cornwall and Liverpool.

Jonathan entered the Adeline Genée competition and followed in his sister's footsteps by winning a bronze medal. Jonathan has danced with English National Ballet at the Royal Albert Hall and in their Australian tour of "Romeo and Juliet". He returned to Ballet West as a senior principal artist and has performed the roles of The Prince in "Sleeping Beauty", Romeo in "Romeo and Juliet", The Cavalier Prince in "The Nutcracker" and Siegfried in "Swan Lake" with the company.

He teaches on the HND Professional Stage Dance and coaches exam work at the school.

Kelly McCole - Principal Dancer/Teacher

Originally from Perth, Kelly McCole trained at Ballet West. She was awarded honours in her advanced RAD examination and competed in the prestigious Adeline Genée Award. She was the only British girl to reach the finals of the competition and was one of four students from Ballet West who took part in the competition that year. Kelly has also been awarded the Royal Academy of Dance Solo Seal. Kelly joined English National Ballet for their Far East, Australian and UK tour of "Swan Lake". Kelly has performed with the Ballet West Company in "Swan Lake", "Celebration" and in the tours of "Romeo and Juliet", "Sleeping Beauty", as the Lilac Fairy, "Swan Lake" and "The Nutcracker". Kelly is also a teacher for the Ballet West outreach programme.

Amanda MacArthur-Sloss - Outreach Teacher

Amanda has been involved with Ballet West since its foundation in 1991. She was one of the first to join the full-time course and during her time at the school gained a wealth of experience as a performer and teacher. She has been teaching the younger Ballet West students at Taynuilt for a number of years and has helped many of them to achieve excellent results in their Royal Academy of Dance exams. She teaches classes around Oban, specializing particularly in working with local nurseries and other pre-school groups. She has contributed enormously to the great success of Ballet West's junior productions of "Hansel and Gretal", "Swan Lake" & "Coppélia" and is keen to involve children from her classes in future productions.

Vicky Horn - Outreach Teacher

Vicky Horn completed her training at Ballet West Upper School in 2000. She has been awarded the Solo Seal of the Royal Academy of Dance. Vicky reached the finals of the first Molly Lake awards in 1999 and participated in the Adeline Genee awards in 2000. She is from Ballachulish and danced with the company for several years. She performed many roles in the Ballet West's productions, most notably, Odile in "Swan Lake" (1996) and Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" (1999-2000). In addition to her work with Ballet West, she has danced with her brother David as a guest partnership in various productions. Vicky now teaches for Ballet West's outreach programme in Edinburgh, Mull and Glendaruel.

Ann Edmonds - Teacher

Ann Edmonds trained at Merseyside Dance and Drama Centre, graduating in 2005. She completed her studies at Ballet West, performing with the Ballet West Company in "Coppélia" as a friend and "Romeo and Juliet" as a fool and lily maiden. Ann is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Dance, having gained her Advance 2 RAD and RAD teaching Certificate.

After leaving Ballet West, she worked in several dance companies in Madeira, Portugal, Spain, Morocco and Cyprus. She returned to Scotland in 2010 to take up a position in the Ballet West Company Touring "The Nutcracker" in Scotland and China. She remained in China after the tour to take up a teaching post for 6 months and has now returned to Ballet West to teach the full-time and outreach students. With her skills in Ballet, Tap and Jazz, Ballet West will be expanding its outreach classes.

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