Avant Chamber Ballet

Help us welcome new company members for the 2026-27 season - plus a promotion alert!

Karin Seiki originally from Japan, graduated from Austrian ballet school Tokyo affiliated with ABC-Tokyo Ballet. She performed many kinds of classical and company's repertoires in that company. After that, she started dancing as a trainee at American Repertory Ballet. Performed Nutcracker and Swan lake with the company, also she performed Paquita and contemporary dance repertories. Later she joined Coastal City Ballet. She performed some soloists of Paquita and Coppelia, and lead role of Raymonda.

During the first year as a trainee with Avant, she’s grown familiar with dance styles beyond ballet through the company class, repertoire, and modern or jazz classes. She’s enjoying exploring a wider range of expressive possibilities. She is also really excited about performing with the live music again in the next season!

Avant Chamber Ballet is honored to be a recipient of the Moody Fund for the Arts grant for the 2026-27 season with some amazing Dallas arts organizations!
Read more about it here —>

Just a moment...

Help us welcome new company members for the 2026-27 season - plus a promotion alert!

Kiley White was born and raised in Marietta, Georgia and began her dance training at the age of 3 with the Tolbert Yilmaz School of Dance. At age 12 she was accepted into the pre-professional dance company, Roswell Dance Theatre (RDT), and trained in Ballet and Modern, which sparked her drive to gain more knowledge in different styles of dance.

At 16, she was accepted into the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) high school program for ballet, where she studied through her junior and senior years. She continued her education at UNCSA through their college program, where she graduated in May of 2025 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in ballet. While at UNCSA, Kiley worked with esteemed faculty such as, Eva Draw, Jennet Zerbe, Angelina Sansone, Laura Martin, and Jared Redick. She was also given the opportunity to perform various repertoire with UNCSA, including Ilya Kozadayev’s The Nutcracker, George Balanchine’s Serenade and Concerto Barocco, and Gina Patterson’s Seven Deadly Sins, among other classical and contemporary repertoire. Her studies gave her a new perspective on being a dancer and have inspired her to continue performing and sharing her love of dance with the audience.

Kiley spent the 2025-2026 season as a trainee with Avant Chamber Ballet, and is excited to be returning for the 2026-2027 season at ACB as an apprentice!

Help us welcome new company members for the 2026-27 Season!

Nicole Townsend (she/her) was born in San Jose, California. She began dancing at age 2 and began formal ballet training at Ballet San Jose at age 7. Her training continued at City Ballet School in San Francisco. After a Summer Intensive on scholarship at Pacific Northwest Ballet, Nicole was accepted into their Professional Division Program. While there, she had the opportunity to perform with the company in The Nutcracker. She joined the Second Company of Kansas City Ballet where she performed Devon Carney’s The Nutcracker, Michael Pink’s Dracula and Septime Webre’s Wizard of Oz. She was awarded a full scholarship to Paris Opera Ballet Summer Intensive, was a recipient of the American Friends of Paris Opera Ballet Scholarship, and studied at the Dutch National Summer Program in Amsterdam. Nicole joined Oakland Ballet in 2022 and has been seen in Benjamin Briones Mixtecas, Alyah Baker's 4 Parts Jazz and Graham Lustig’s Luna Mexicana,The Nutcracker and Uncertain Steps. In 2023 Nicole performed her first Principal role Marie, in Graham Lustig's The Nutcracker, and reprised her role the following year. She has also performed Phil Chan’s Duet from Exquisite Co**se, Natasha Adorlee's Last Chinaman on theTitanic, Elaine Kudo's Page of 1875 and Wei Wang's Chinese Massacre for the Angel Island Project in Dancing Moons. In 2024 Nicole received an Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Performance for her work in OBC’s Rainbow Dances. Nicole has guested for Alameda Ballet where she performed principal roles Snow Queen and Dewdrop. Nicole is delighted to start her first season with Avant Chamber Ballet.

Tomorrow night’s free performance at Moody Performance Hall is special because it will be the last time Kaylee Skelton performs as a member of ACB.
We are excited to celebrate Kaylee and her new career steps as a company dancer and co-director of Reverie Dance Company in Denver, Colorado.

“I am truly beyond grateful for the past 7 seasons with Avant Chamber Ballet. This place has given me the space and opportunity to grow so much as a human and artist, and for that I am exceedingly thankful. It is bittersweet to be moving on to a new chapter of dancing, but I will be taking with me an abundance of incredible memories, career highlights, and friendships!” - Kaylee Skelton

Photo by Sharen Bradford.

Join us tomorrow for a free performance at Moody Performance Hall!

Join us this Friday for ArtFest at the Moody Performance Hall , a FREE open house of live artists curated by Charles Santos, Executive and Artistic Director of TITAS/DANCE UNBOUND.

ACB will be performing excerpts from “Sisterhood” with live music composed by Quinn Mason at 8pm.

Photo by Sharen Bradford.

Thank you to guest teachers Joshua Brooksher and Yvonne Racz for week three of our summer intensive!