PROFESSIONAL COURSES
At A&A Ballet, we believe that the discipline of dance training is a discipline that trains one for life. An education in dance not only builds the gifts of personal character and community collaboration, but also develops skills for the professional work of life. With this conviction in mind, we are happy to announce that, in the fall of 2020, we will be expanding our program by offering NEW courses for those interested in the many professional aspects of the business of dance. A&A Ballet is stepping ahead to accomplish its goal of providing students, from ages 3 - 24, with a complete and innovative educational program. A program of professional courses is being developed to supply students with the skills that they need for future job opportunities related to the world of dance. Four courses, nine weeks in length, will be taught by renowned professionals and leaders in their fields. Further information and registration details will be announced in the near future. Professional studies at A&A Ballet will include the following subjects:
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• Teacher/Director/Administrator
• Marketing/PR/Social Media Manager
• Performing Arts Medicine
• Dance History/Journalist/Blogger
• Dance Filmmaker/Photographer
• Costume/Set and Props Designer
• Talent Agent/Manager/Producer
DANCE FILMMAKER/PHOTOGRAPHER
Ken Goldstein is an Emmy Award winning American documentary writer, director, editor, and producer. He is also an accomplished singer, songwriter, and recording artist, and the author of The Way of the Nerd book series. After a successful career creating national and international educational films, outreach and advocacy videos for disabled groups and charitable organizations, Ken began directing network television documentary specials in the early 1990s for the A&E networks iconic series, Investigative Reports. An occasional network news reporter, columnist for the Chicago Tribune, cub reporter and photo journalist for the New York New Times, and ABC/CAPCities radio host, Ken has spent the past thirty years creating compelling content for television, radio, and print for a variety of networks and outlets including Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, HISTORY CHANNEL, BBC, TF-1, NBC, Discovery Networks, PBS and more.
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Mr. Goldstein is also globally renowned creative director, marketing expert, and speaker. His clients include Sony, Microsoft, NIKE, Von Dutch Originals, The White House, Catholic Charities and more. He is currently recording his third collection of original songs at BMG
Production Studios in Los Angeles.
DANCE HISTORY/JOURNALIST/BLOGGER
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Hedy Weiss served as Theater and Dance Critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1984 to February of 2018, reporting on local, national and international productions, as well as a wide range of other subjects including art and architecture, classical music and opera, books, travel and international affairs.
Since 2002, she also has served as Theater and Dance Critic for "Chicago Tonight," the nightly news magazine on WTTW-Channel 11, Chicago's PBS station, to whose website she now contributes on a regular basis. She also has contributed to radio programs on WGN and WBEZ radio.
A contributing editor to Dance Magazine, Weiss' work has appeared in the London Observer, the Boston Globe, the Lincoln Center Playbill, Pointe Magazine and many other publications. She writes a monthy arts and culture column for the Jewish United Fund magazine. And she served on the Pulitzer Prize panel for Drama three times.
In 1997, during a sabbatical in Europe, Weiss covered news events in Serbia, Bosnia, Poland, Hungary, Germany and other parts of Eastern and Western Europe for the Sun-Times. ‘‘The New Europe,’’ her five-part series inspired by that year abroad, was nominated for several major awards.
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In October 2010, Weiss received an award from the Arts and Business Council of Chicago citing her as one of the top 25 influential forces in the arts in Chicago, and for making "outstanding and lasting contributions to Chicago’s lively, diverse arts landscape.
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In November 2011, she was presented with a Special Jeff Award in recognition of her contributions to Chicago theatre, where she has "consistently encouraged and supported young emerging theaters and artists, and has been a strong supporter of new works and new adaptations."
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Weiss also has served as a moderator for the annual Michael Merritt Awards, a national award unique in its emphasis on excellence in both design and collaboration, that has been presented annually since 1994 to outstanding professional theatrical designers.
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Born in New York, Weiss graduated from Hunter College of the City University of New York with a degree in English literature and art history, and early on pursued a career as a dancer and choreographer, with professional training at the Metropolitan Opera and Joffrey Ballet Schools, performances with the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, the Moshe Ariel Dance Company, Eleo Pomare and many others, and extensive teaching credits. She moved to Chicago in 1980 and worked for four years as an assistant professor at the Theatre School of DePaul University before turning to full-time journalism.
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Carol Fox / President
A veteran in the Chicago arts and entertainment scene, Carol Fox established Carol Fox and Associates in 1994 to fill an important niche – to provide marketing and public relations services for arts and entertainment across the city. Now the fearless leader of the #FoxyFam, Carol has grown CF&A to become Chicago’s largest marketing and public relations firm focusing specifically on promoting arts, entertainment and lifestyle clientele.
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​Prior to starting CF&A, Carol graduated from Indiana University and earned widespread recognition for PR and marketing work for some of Chicago’s leading arts organizations, including Performing Arts Chicago and longtime CF&A client Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.
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​When she isn’t leading the CF&A team to achieve stellar results for their impressive roster of clients, Carol brings her passion for the arts to several nonprofit organizations, frequently serving on advisory boards and sharing her arts marketing expertise as a speaker and panel member for organizations including Publicity Club of Chicago, Arts Reach and Dance USA. Additionally, Carol co-founded See Chicago Dance, a non-profit organization that has become a vital marketing tool for dance in Chicago. She is also dedicated to wiping out diabetes and serves as a board member for JDRF, the leading global non-profit organization committed to research funding and advocacy for Type 1 Diabetes.
MARKETING/PR/SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
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Carol Fox and Associates (CF&A) is Chicago’s largest firm specializing in arts, entertainment and lifestyle marketing. As a full-service agency with award-winning expertise in media relations, digital media, event planning and group sales, the campaigns are fully integrated, increasing their impact and effectiveness in building audiences and selling tickets. Lauded for its creative and strategic approach, CF&A works with a wide array of clients in one of the country’s most competitive markets.
CF&A has received national certification as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.
COSTUME/SET AND PROPS DESIGNER
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Olga Maslova is Russian-American designer and dramaturg. She was born in Ukraine, earned BFA in directing from Kharkov's Academy of Culture, and hitchhiked through post-USSR art and theatre scene in Russia and Ukraine before moving to USA. Since then she designed costumes and sets for many prominent directors and choreographers in USA, South America and Europe. Among them are Bill T Jones and Arnie Zane Company, Dan Sullivan, Christopher Bayes, Daniel Helfgot, Ron Daniels, Pedro Salazar and many others. New York Times hailed her costumes as "stylish", and Boston Globe as "beautiful". Opera News Magazine called her costumes ''spectacular", Backstage hailed Three Sisters attire "authentic", her creativity has been described from "eye popping" to "madly inventive". Recent highlights include costumes and sets for operas Everest and Aleko, (both for Chicago Opera Theatre, Chicago, Harris Theatre, 2019), costumes for the opera Dido and Aeneas (2019) and Florenica en el Amazonas (2018), both at Teatro Colon, Bogota, Colombia, latter named “Best of 2018: Most Memorable Opera Performances Of the Year” by Opera Wire magazine, costumes for the world premiere of the ballet Flight (Kathmandu, Nepal, 2019), exploring the stories of the Nepalese sex traffic victims.
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Olga designed many productions for New Opera NYC, among them costumes for Golden Cockerel, Boris Godunov and Iolanta. Olga’s costumes for New Opera NYC production of Golden Cockerel was nominated by the OPERNWELT magazine for the best costume design in opera in 2017.
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At her home turf at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign she designed costumes for the world premiere of a play Long Lost by Pulitzer Prize winning author Donald Margulies, directed by Tony Award winner Dan Sullivan, Kabuki- Elizabethan take on Othello, titled Iago's Plot directed by the recipient of the Japanese Order of Sacred Treasure venerable Shozo Sato.
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As a librettist, Olga co-wrote with New Opera NYC artistic director Igor Konyukhov the new opera Black Square, composed by prominent Russian composer Ilya Demutsky. It premiered on site at famed Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow in November 2018, with Malevich’s original painting “Black Square” from its collection as a part of the set. Olga’s new libretto, for an oratorio Last Day of an Eternal City, co-written with Boston based award winning poet Katia Kapovich, also composed by Ilya Demutsky, for Moscow Chamber Choir will premiere in Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Russia, in the fall of 2020.
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Olga is an assistant professor of costumes and a co-chair of the Costume design and technology program at the Department of Theatre, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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Olga received BFA summa cum laude (Red Diploma) in directing from the State Academy of Culture, Kharkov, Ukraine. She holds two terminal degrees: MFA in Dramaturgy from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and MFA in costume and set design from NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, where she attended on Hope Scholarship, Irving Goldman Friars Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Scholarship.
PERFORMING ARTS MEDICINE
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Carrie A. Jaworski, MD, FAAFP, FACSM
Dr. Carrie Jaworski is the Director of the Division of Primary Care Sports Medicine, the Primary Care Sports Medicine Fellowship Director and a Clinical Assistant Professor within the Department of Family Medicine at NorthShore University HealthSystem & the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. Her clinical time is divided between a sports medicine practice in both Chicago and Glenview and teaching sports medicine fellows, residents and medical students. Her clinical and research interests include concussions, the pediatric and female athlete population, nutrition/supplements, endurance medicine, dance medicine and the promotion of "Exercise is Medicine".
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She recently served as the Medical Director for Hamilton Chicago as well as is the Team Physician for Loyola Academy High School. She was previously the Head Team Physician for Northwestern University Athletics where she was the Director of Intercollegiate Sports Medicine. Dr. Jaworski has been a physician at the Salt Lake Olympics in 2002, the Ironman World Championships in Kona and continues to serve as a lead physician for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Dr. Jaworski is frequently an invited speaker on the National and International level and has published numerous book chapters and articles pertaining to sports medicine. She is active within the American College of Sports Medicine and previously served as one of their Vice Presidents.
Dr. Jaworski incorporates exercise into all of her treatment plans as she truly believes that movement is essential to one's health and wellbeing.
TALENT AGENT/MANAGER/PRODUCER
Susan Ancillotti has been managing unique talent for over a decade and is the founder and creator of Ciao L.A.
Originally from Italy, Susan now resides in Los Angeles to focus on elevating and expanding her distinct roster of talent which already includes some of the world’s most sought-after dancers, choreographers and creatives.
Her artists' credits include Chris Brown, Madonna, J-Lo, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake and Usher, to name a few.
Her artists have also appeared in shows like America's Best Dance Crew, So You Think You Can Dance, World of Dance, Italia's Got Talent and X-Factor, as well as in movies like Step Up, Stomp the Yard, and Rize.
During the past decade, she has also coordinated with some of the biggest camps in the dance world including Urban Dance Camp, Fairplay, Beat Camp, En Dance, SDK, HDI and Asia Camp.
PRODUCER/DIRECTOR
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As the founder of The Glawe Group, Julia Glawe provides strategic planning and interim leadership to individual artists and arts organizations. Prior to starting her own company, she was the Executive Director of Milwaukee Ballet, and the Senior Vice President and Director of the Dance Division at IMG Artists. Throughout her career she has worked with dozens of artists and companies including Laurie Anderson, Ballet Hispanico, Trisha Brown, Bolshoi Ballet, Dance Lab New York, Philip Glass, Akram Khan, Taylor Mac, Nederlands Dans Theater, and Urban Bush Women. Julia has served on the boards of ISPA and Western Arts Alliance (WAA). In 2009, she received WAA’s Leadership Award, its highest honor, for artistic excellence and distinguished leadership. Julia has been a guest speaker for Carnegie Mellon University, Dance/USA, Juilliard, Purchase College, and the Shanghai International Festival.