Our Faculty

 Georgi Rusafov is a graduate of the National Dance High School in Sofia, Bulgaria studying under Peter Koldamov. After graduation he joined the National Opera and Ballet Sofia Bulgaria. Mr.Rusafov received advanced Vaganova master education for teaching ballet and choreography at the Bulgarian National Music Conservatory (P.Vladigerov). Mr. Rusafov has won several ballet awards and has participated in the International Ballet Competitions – Varna, and Helsinki. Mr.Rusafov has performed as a soloist and principal dancer with the Bulgarian National Opera and Ballet, and Estonia National Ballet. He was a principal dancer with Milwaukee Ballet, Northern Plains Ballet and Omaha Ballet Theater and company member with Ballet Arizona. Toured in Spain, Greece, Egypt, Germany, Holland, Italy, and all over the United States as a star principal dancer. Mr.Rusafov also is Master Ballet Class teacher. He has taught Master Ballet Workshops at New Mexico, Washington DC, Florida, New York and many other places at USA and Europe.   

Miss Hartley was born in Bonn, Germany, and grew up in South Africa and Chile, where her parents danced for P.A.C.T. Ballet and Ballet de Santiago. She studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts with teachers such as Melissa Hayden, Duncan Noble, Gyula Pandi, Dianne Markham, and Trish Casey. 

In 1993 she joined Ballet de Santiago with Marcia Haydee as her director. In 1997 Ivan Nagy took over the company and Miss Hartley was promoted to soloist after performing the role of Myrtha in “Giselle” with guest artist Igor Zelensky. During her years with Ballet de Santiago, she worked with other guest artists such as Jose Manuel Carreño, Maximiliano Guerra, Carlos Acosta, and Lauren Anderson. She performed leading roles such as Olga in John Cranko’s “Eugene Onegin”, TheMad Lady in Ben Stevenson’s “Peer Gynt”, Mercedes in “Don Quijote”, The Countess in Ronal Hynd’s “The Devil to Pay” and Stella in Mauricio Wainrot’s World Premiere of “Streetcar Named Desire”. She had the opportunity to work with choreographers such as Ronald Hynd, Ben Stevenson, Trey Mc Intyre, David Parsons and Natalia Makarova.

In July of 1998 Miss Hartley was invited to join Ballet Arizona as a Principal Dancer, company now under the directorship of Ib Andersen since 2000. Since arriving, she has expanded her modern repertoire by working and performing pieces from Kevin O’Day (“Hellblondegroove”), Paul Taylor (“Company B”), Twyla Tharp (“Sinatra Suite” and “The Golden Section”), Julia Adams (“Before”), and world premieres by Moses Pendleton (“Opus Cactus”) and Dwight Rhoden (“Skinny Puzzle” and “Scarlet Symphony”). She performed with guest artists such as Marcelo Gomes (“La Fille mal Gardee “ pas de deux), Nikolaj Hubbe (“Napoli”) and Gael Lambiotte (“Swan Lake”). Her leading roles in full length productions include Aurora in “Sleeping Beauty”, Odette/Odile in “Swan Lake”, Giselle in “Giselle”, Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet”, Swanilda in “Coppelia”, The Sylph in “La Sylphide”, and Kitri in “Don Quijote”. She has premiered leading roles in Ib Andersen’s productions of “Midsummer Nights Dream”, “Play”, “Indigo Rhapsody”, “Amoroso”, “Mozaic”, and “Topia”. Her Balanchine repertoire includes principal roles in ballets such as “Theme and Variations”, “Allegro Brillante”, “Apollo”, “Serenade”, “Four Temperaments”, “Divertimento No 15”, “Duo Concertante”, “Concerto Barroco”, “Stravinsky Violin Concerto”and “Rubies”. She has received extensive coaching from stagers such as Olga Eivrenoff, Freddie Franklin, Sandra Jennings, Susan Hendl and Elaine Kudo.
During the summers of 2009 and 2008, Miss Hartley performed with local company Novaballet. She worked with upcoming choreographer Emery Le Crone in “Pulling to Break”, performed Vicente Nebrada’s “Our Waltzes”, and restaged David Palmer and Yanis Pikieris’ “Adiemus”. Miss Hartley has toured in Stuttgart, Buenos Aires, Budapest and New York. She performed with partner Astrit Zejnati at a Gala in Albania in 2005 and at the Miami International Dance Festival in 2006. She has been seen by millions performing as a guest artist in the Chilean TV talent show “Rojo Fama Contrafama”, where her father is a judge. In her spare time she has taught ballet at several dance academies of the valley, such as Tempe Dance Academy, Master Ballet Academy, and The School of Ballet Arizona.

In the summer of 2011 and 2012, Miss Hartley was invited as a guest faculty member at the Goh Ballet Academy in Vancouver, Canada.
In 2013, Miss Hartley joined The Suzanne Farrell Ballet as a Soloist, where she performed the leading roles in George Balanchine’s “Pas de Dix”, “Tempo di Valse”, “Episodes” (Symphony and Concerto), “Agon” (2nd Pas de Trois), “Swan Lake”,”Allegro Brillante”, the role of Juliet in Paul Mejia’s “Romeo and Juliet”, and the Butch Girl in Jerome Robbins’ “The. Concert”. In 2015, Miss Hartley retired from Ballet Arizona and has become one mother of a beautiful boy while also continuing her career as a guest artist and teacher.

Sabina Valic began dancing at the age of 5 in her native Pula, Croatia. She pursued her love and passion for ballet and was later accepted to attend the formal School for Classical Ballet in Zagreb, Croatia.

Her dance education continued after moving to Arizona and her dance experience today spans from classical, contemporary, and character, to modern dance.

Some of her classical dancing roles include: Les Cygnets (“Swan Lake”), Sugar Plum (“Nutcracker”), Prelude (“Les Sylphides”, coached by Mr.George Zorich, principal dancer with Les Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo), “Leaves Are Fading”, as well as a variety of contemporary and modern pieces.

Ms. Valic had the joy and privilege to perform, among others, with the Croatian National Ballet Theater of Croatia, Arizona Opera, Fun House Movement Dance Company, Balalaika Orchestra, Flor de Liz Dance Ensemble, and the University of Arizona’s Dance Department.

 Mariah is currently dancing for YABC and is a senior in high school. She has done all styles of dance for many years. Has been around the United States competing and winning many awards and scholarships. Has attended many different summer conferences on scholarship to Joffrey ballet (New York, San Francisco, and Denver), Ballet West, and University of Utah. She has won 3rd place at YAGP for classical and contemporary and won the Legacy award along with 1st place for both classical and contemporary at Universal Ballet Competition. Mariah has also recently been accepted into the University of Utah’s ballet program.

Katherine is a graduate of Georgi’s Rusafov’s pre-professional ballet program. During her time at the Youth American Ballet Company, she performed multiple lead roles at the YABC, including Aurora, Lilac Fairy, Snow Queen, Dew Drop, and Sugar Plum. At the age of 16 and 18, she was invited to perform as a guest artist in New Mexico and Mississippi to dance the Sugar Plum Pas de Deux. Throughout her training, she competed in multiple ballet competitions around the world including ADC IBC, World Ballet Competition, and the Youth America Grand Prix. She was awarded full scholarships to Sarasota Ballet Summer Intensive, Milwaukee Ballet Summer Intensive, Alberta Ballet School, and Danceworks Ballet Academy in London, UK. In 2019, Katherine was awarded first place in the senior women’s classical division and was one of 130 competitors to be selected to perform at the Youth America Grand Finals in New York City. Katherine is grateful to be a part of Premier Ballet Conservatory and is excited to teach the next generation of aspiring ballerinas. 

 From a very young age, Avery fell in love with the art of dance movement. She spent her childhood learning all genres of dance and honed in on her ballet and contemporary technique training while studying at All American Classical Ballet School in Tampa, Florida. In 2015, after moving to Scottsdale Arizona, Avery began extensive ballet and contemporary training at Master Ballet Academy. She fostered a love for choreography at a very young age and created her first self-choreographed piece at age 15 which placed in the Top 4 at an International Ballet Competition. Soon after, Avery went on to perform as Principal Dancer in Pheonix Ballet’s String of Thoughts and was also a soloist in their performance of Paquita. Avery has also dabbled in acting, playing the role of Abigail in the Netflix film Driven to Dance. She has guested in many performances, including being the Lead Soloist in American School of Classical Ballet’s performance of Firebird in 2018. In addition, Avery has played various roles in The Nutcracker throughout her years including Harlequin Doll Soloist, Spanish Soloist, Snow Queen, and Sugar Plum Fairy.

At age 17, after attending the prestigious Arts Umbrella Intensive in Canada, Avery moved to San Diego to teach the contemporary program at Golden State Ballet. While there, she created and choreographed many award winning contemporary performances for YAGP. She currently is a featured guest teacher at the Grand Premier Invitational

DeQuan Lewis is a native of Gilbert, AZ, and is currently working as an artist in New York City. He received his BFA in dance from the University of Arizona where he performed works by José Limón, Ohad Naharin, Alexei Ratmansky, & Darrell Moultrie. Upon graduation, DeQuan has had the opportunity to work in the creative process for Justin Giles, SoulEscape for the past 4 years. In the summer of 2018, he attended Springboard Danse Montreal, where he worked on a creation with Vim Vigor. Most recently, he has joined Justin Giles’ SoulEscape. DeQuan began working with Doug Varone and Dancers in 2019. 

Brenna was born and raised in Gilbert, Arizona. She started dancing when she was three years old and has been hooked ever since. She grew up training and competing in all styles such as Jazz, Ballet, Tap, Contemporary, Modern, Hip-Hop, etc. This later led her to The University of Arizona where she received a BFA degree in Dance. 

While in Tucson she had the opportunity to train and perform several different styles on stage. During her sophomore year of college she experienced a spinal fracture during a show. Although fracturing her spine wasn’t a fun experience, it was because of this that she discovered a new found passion for Pilates . Through the UA Dance program she was able to receive Fletcher Pilates training to help rehab her spine and get her back on stage quicker. During her senior year of college she was given the opportunity to go through the Foundational Training program to become a Fletcher Pilates Teacher. By the end of 2021 Brenna will have finished the Fletcher Professional Training Program, helping her to better understand the body and be the best teacher she can be.

Since 2016, she has been dancing with the LA dance company MusEffect, which has allowed her to live and work in both LA and AZ. Through MusEffect Brenna is able to use her artform of dance to help give back to the community. 

In 2018 she was apart of the NBA Phoenix Suns Dancers for the 2018-2019 NBA season. With the Suns she was given the opportunity to dance and work with several choreographers including Tyce Diorio, Lacey Schwimmer, Matt Stephanina, Anthony Garza, Tribe 99, Ade Obayomi, Heather Morris and many more. With the Suns she performed with artists Coolio and Lumidee. 

While she loves performing, teaching is such a big passion of Brenna’s! Since she was 16 years old she has had a love of working with younger dancers and helping train the future generation of movers. . In 2019 Brenna created her business Pilates To Pirouettes. Merging dance and Pilates is a passion of hers, which allows her to help kids better understand their muscles and help avoid injuries in the future. She is looking forward to opening up her own Pilates space in October 2021. She hopes to make everyone feel their best so that they can dance their best.