Emery Jo Ballet School

Jo Emery Ballet School has been a cornerstone of Performing Arts in Tacoma for years! It is also the home of the Tacoma Performing Dance Company. Classes range from Pre-Ballet to Advanced Ballet with children starting as young as 4 years old. Jazz & Modern dance lessons are also available. Jo is a Master Teacher of Dance and is also well known for her alumni students who have had outstanding professional careers in the dance world! Call or View our website for more…

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Jo Emery Ballet School has been a cornerstone of Performing Arts in Tacoma for years! It is also the home of the Tacoma Performing Dance Company. Classes range from Pre-Ballet to Advanced Ballet with children starting as young as 4 years old. Jazz & Modern dance lessons are also available. Jo is a Master Teacher of Dance and is also well known for her alumni students who have had outstanding professional careers in the dance world! Call or View our website for more information.

Artistic Director, Jo Emery, formed the Tacoma Performing Dance Company over thirty years ago. As a non-profit organization with a volunteer board of trustees, we rely on many other volunteers to help us achieve our goals. Each year dancers are given the opportunity to perform in The Nutcracker Ballet, annual spring performance, and other opportunities such as Zoolights, Festival of Trees, Tacoma’s First Night, and collaboration performances with the Tacoma Concert Band and Evergreen Brass Quintet.

All Company members are selected from advanced students of the Jo Emery Ballet School. Company members work many hours each week in classes and rehearsals to acquire their technique and performance skills. The vision of Tacoma Performing Dance Company is to produce consistently exceptional dance performances, featuring devoted and passionate dancers for the artistic enjoyment, education and entertainment of our community.


The mission of Tacoma Performing Dance Company is to:

Provide outstanding, versatile dance presentations to the greater south Puget Sound region at an affordable price for the enjoyment of all.
Present dancers in a diverse classical and contemporary repertoire of creative professional choreography.
Develop dancers and future choreographers for the continuation of a distinguished and respected dance program in our community.

Emery guides the Tacoma Performing Dance Company in developing style, choices and repertoire, and opportunities for the Company to expand in new horizons. Her vast background as a professional choreographer provides the dancers with a strong resident talent who invites guest choreographers to create new works and encourage young choreographers from within the Company.

Jo is a recipient of three National Endowments for the Arts Choreography Fellowships enabling her to create original works for the Tacoma Performing Dance Company. Emery has received many commissions for her original works from companies.

Her ballets People Dances and Footsongs were selected for the National Choreography Plan, which is comprised of quality works from choreographers throughout the nation. The New York Dance Collection came to Tacoma to film several of her early works, which are in the Jerome Robbins Archives in the New York Public Library at Lincoln Center. Other honors include winning the Harkness Ballet Choreography Competition and creating a ballet for the Harkness Ballet in New York. In April 2001, she choreographed the world premiere of David Holsinger’s ballet Praises for the Tacoma Concert Band at The Pantages Theatre.

Jo has been a choreographer for large-scale shows and worked for Greg Thompson Productions for nine years. She was named Choreographer of the Year in Atlantic City for her show work there. Categories:   Fitness Instruction | Wedding Workouts | Dance

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