Under the Direction of Jessica Pyatt Martin, the Ballet has entered a phase of explosive development.  With energy, vision and determination, Martin initiated an apprentice company, hired multiple professional dancers, introduced live music, and has begun collaborations with other performing arts organizations.

Ms. Martin particularly targets a union of live music and dance in our concerts.  Collaborations between musicians and dancers are good for audiences as well as for the performers and allow two enthusiasms to feed off each other.

Mutual support/cross promotion among local performing artists is a theme that underlies her vision.  It was her inclusive philosophy that led to the birth of TheStudio, a shared space for artists to learn, to partner, and to  perform.   

Jessica graduated from James Madison University with a double major in Dance and English. While at JMU, she was a member of its pre-professional performance group, The Virginia Repertory Dance Company, as well as its Contemporary Dance and Associate Dance Ensembles. She was the Student Co-Director of JMU’s Associate Dance Ensemble and choreographed works that have been presented on the  stages of JMU as well in local studio concerts.

Jessica was awarded the “Most Dedicated to the Art Form” award from JMU’s Dance Theatre.  She was also awarded the “JMU Dance Faculty Award”, given by dance professors to honor the student excelling in three  areas: performance, choreography and teaching.   Jessica has taught dance in Northern Virginia; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,  Salem, New Castle, and Lexington, Virginia.

Jessica Pyatt Martin

Artistic Director, The Rockbridge Ballet

Executive Director, TheStudio for Dance & the Arts

Meagan Herald, Dance Instructor

Meagan has been dancing for over 25 years and began her career as a child in Colorado.  The majority of her ballet training was through the Arvada Art Center under the instruction of Christina Noel, Eve Paris and Lisi Elsey.

As a young dancer, she performed soloist roles in Peter and the Wolf, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Paquita, Pas de Quatre and Hansel and Gretel.  Meagan was a ballet instructor for the Arvada Art Center for seven years. She also taught ballet at Thornton City Recreation Center and Highland Hill’s Ice Arena.  

Meagan has created numerous ballet pieces for the Arvada Art Center and for the Rockbridge Ballet.  She lives in Lexington where, in addition to her dance commitments, she is a professor at Virginia Military Institute.

Bailey Vincent Clark

Dance Instructor

Writing Instructor

American Sign Language Instructor

Bailey has 20 years of dance experience and professional technique in all areas of ballet, Pointe, modern, tap, jazz, lyrical, and other variations of dance movement and choreography. By the age of three, she studied and performed with Dance Dimensions studio in South Florida, and performed with a professional children’s company, The Children’s Ballet Theatre (at venues like Broward Center for the Performing Arts).  After moving to Virginia, Bailey studied and performed as a soloist with the Rockingham Ballet Theatre in such classic ballets as Pas De Quatres, Paquita, and Coppellia, among others.   In recent years, Bailey has gone on to work as the head ballet, Pointe and modern mistress at Old Dominion Performing Arts Studio, as well as teach her original ballet conditioning techniques at the Staunton Academy of Ballet. Bailey has also taught dance to youth at Blue Ridge Community College as adjunct faculty, and is a certified personal trainer with years of work in the fitness, nutritional and post-partum health fields.

Bailey has been a writer since the age of fourteen, when she wrote a long running Op-Ed column (titled “Self Proclaimed Girl”) for Gannette newspapers. After teaching a variety of fitness and post-partum health classes, she worked as a health writer for online publications like Lance Armstrong’s website Livestrong.com, Ehow.com, and the cancer advocate resource Cinco Vidas. She created blog content, video scripts and books for celebrity trainer Tracy Effinger of Squeeze Fitness, wrote for American Greetings, as well as worked as a contributing columnist for nationwide print magazines like The Link and Raw.  Since then, Bailey has become editor-in-chief of Makeover Momma.com (and author of the soon-to-be-published Makeover Momma book). She reports from New York Fashion Week biannually, was chosen as an exclusive member of Daily Makeover’s Beauty Bloggerati, Conde Naste’s Cookie Magazines blogger panel, and currently remains a member of the She Blogs expert writing panel. Makeover Momma has won various awards (including “Blog You Don’t Want To Miss” and “Top Beauty Blog”), and is on the way to launching a weekly online TV show.  Bailey has recently been chosen by Walmart, to be the official New Mom blogger nationwide, and writes weekly on their website (with 2 millions views per day), in addition to hosting monthly Walmart video makeovers for new moms.  

Jenna Beagan has been studying dance for the past nine years.  She has been a member/soloist with the Rockbridge Ballet for the last six years.  Jenna has been featured in Rockbridge Ballet productions in roles such as: The Sugar Plum Fairy, and most recently as Cinderella.

She had the opportunity to study under/perform with Ballet Master Chatch Pregger.    This past year Jenna attended the Z Mullins Dance Symposium.  There she studied under Shane O'Hara (JMU), Danah Bella ( Radford Univ.), Rose Pasquerello Beauchamp (UVA) and Scott Putman (VCU).

Jenna is currenty a student at Dabney Lancaster College and is planning to study dance at a four year university in the near future.  She is excited by the opportunity to shape young dancers and help foster a love for dance and creative movement in her students. 

Tara Rodi is originally from San Diego, California where she received her dance training at the Christa Mitrovich School of Dance in Tap, Jazz, Ballet, Lyrical and Acrobatics.

Tara’s semi-professional career began with Super Bowl XXII, which gave her the opportunity to dance with the New York City Rockettes.

As a professional she danced for USA Productions and was a professional cheerleader for the NFL San Diego Chargers.  Later moving to Florence, Alabama, Tara owned and operated Tara Rodi School of The Dance for 13 years.  Her competition teams and dancers earned many high score awards and scholarships throughout the Southeast.  Many of Tara’s students have gone on to have professional careers in dance.

Tara has 25 years experience as a dance teacher and choreographer and is a member of Dance Educators of America.  She has a degree in Art form the University of North Alabama. 

Tara Rodi

Acrobatics Instructor

Dance Instructor

Jenna Beagan, Dance Instructor