Still on Point: How City Ballet of LA Founder Robyn Gardenhire is Keeping the Youth on Their Toes

While most little girls can only hope of becoming a ballerina, one native Angeleno made her dream come true and then some.

Today, Robyn Gardenhire, 55, serves as the founder and artistic director of the City Ballet of Los Angeles which has operated at the Red Shield Youth & Community Center since 2000.

The Emerging Artist Program is a partnership with the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts in which the academy student is placed into when they become high school students.

As director and principal choreographer, she continues to develop ballets that are classical, and cutting-edge bringing new stories and perspective to the ballet. She has also developed a dance institution that reflects the economic and racial diversity of Los Angeles.

The scholarship school offers the lessons of dance to all, as well as the professional division that nurtures students to go on to dance professionally for students 3 to 13 years old.

“We are a scholarship program so that means students pay about $5 a class or nothing at times, we also are a two-fold school meaning we have an open school and an academy that we pick the students that show the most potential to becoming a dancer,” she said.

Over the years she has received the help of the Executive Director Irene Lewis of the Red Shield Youth & Community, Downtown help from Doug Hanson Hanson LA Architecture, Steve Needelman Orpheum Theater, Red Cat Theater, and Hilda Solis County Supervisor.

Early Days

Gardenhire born in Lynwood is the oldest child of three and began her love of dancing at 10 in Compton. Because she was so advanced, she was able to audition for the former Los Angeles Ballet’s Jr. Company.

She also earned scholarships and studied at American Ballet Theater School, San Francisco Ballet and School of American Ballet, and landed her first contract with Joffrey II and danced at City Center and Jacobs Pillow. Gardenhire also was part of Cleveland Ballet where she danced soloist and principal roles and Karol Armitage company which gave her the chance to tour throughout Europe.

Impressively, Gardenhire at the request of Mikhail Baryshnikov later joined American Ballet Theater and then his White Oak Project.

“It was pretty amazing to meet him,” she said. “I was hired by him twice as I didn’t audition the second time. He just hired me on the spot since he was already familiar with me.”

Once her professional days of dance, teaching, and choreography ended when she was in her 30s, Gardenhire came back to Los Angeles and started the City Ballet of Los Angeles.

“I wanted to create a professional training school that provided full scholarships to students that are economically and socially disadvantaged and a company whose repertoire is a mixture of classical and contemporary dance,” she said. “I thought if I had my own school, I’d offer scholarships like I had all my time training. If I hadn’t had those scholarships, I would never have had a career in dance. I started in the basement of a church and then it just rose from there to what it is today.”

Fast-forward

These days, Gardenhire said the City Ballet of Los Angeles “is committed to bringing in a new audience to experience this wonderful art form by touring with our Urban Outreach Program and promoting the ballet through our full scholarship school.”

And even though the COVID-19 pandemic has closed her doors temporarily like many, she hasn’t given up on teaching her pupils.

“We are now doing classes online and we were getting ready for our 20th year through Facebook and Zoom classes,” she said.

In the last two decades, Gardenhire has developed and overseen CBLA and has created a dance institution that’s curriculum covers Classical Ballet, Modern, Theater and World Dance for thousands of students.

“The institution will continue to work toward developing and allowing students to grow into professional dancers and to be able to cross through any cultural barriers they may encounter,” she said.

Gardenhire is married to musician Ralph Gibson and they have three children, Nola, Nelson, Margaux.