Ballet Fantastique

Meet the Coaches/Instructors

Ballet Fantastique's team of expert faculty members is respected, passionate, and proven.

The Academy of Ballet Fantastique's small team of highly-qualified faculty have backgrounds not only in professional performance and in the Vaganova method, but also in dance pedagogy—so they not only know how to dance, but are also experts in working with young dancers. All are university-trained, with a combined dozens of years of professional experience. They are deeply dedicated to each Ballet Fantastique student, and are also highly approachable as dancers and parents have questions or concerns throughout their training.

Photos: Monovita, Woden Photo

Donna Marisa Bontrager

Ballet Fantastiqe’s Canadian-born Artistic Director, Donna Marisa Bontrager, is a choreographer and expert master teacher in the Russian Vaganova Syllabus. In New York, Ms. Bontrager worked closely for many years with Vaganova pedagogy experts Karl Singleterry and Marvin Askew (Buffalo City Ballet), Bernadine deMike (Royale Dance Theatre New York), and New Yorker Howard Epstein (John Barker’s personal assistant), and studied the extensive materials of Oleg Briansky. These experts have been influential in bringing Vaganova’s notated syllabus to American teachers, dancers, and training academies. Ms. Bontrager’s performance résumé embraces work with New York companies, including Empire State Ballet, Buffalo City Ballet, Royale Dance Theatre New York, and Festival Choir Ballet. In addition, she was one of ten dancers invited to perform as part of the international Feast of the Tabernacles in Jerusalem, Israel, and has been invited to join the World Congress on Dance.

Out of her many years of teaching and performance experience, Ms. Bontrager has developed the complete curriculum for The Academy of Ballet Fantastique, directly following the notated Vaganova Syllabus. She works closely with all Academy of Ballet Fantastique students in their training, choreography, and performance.

Ms. Bontrager has overseen Ballet Fantastique repertoire and productions involving partnerships with choirs, opera, and soloist vocalists, symphony and chamber orchestras, literary and visual artists, and composers. Ms. Bontrager has staged numerous concerts and original ballets for Ballet Fantastique, including Fairytale Favorites and Cakewalk Ballet; many critically-acclaimed Hult Center productions, including Danse en Rouge: Variations in Red, Danse Renaissance, Tour de Suites, and Mosaico de Danza; and innovative collaborations with musicians and organizations, including commissioned work by Eugene Symphony (Carnival of the Animals) and the Oregon Mozart Players (Glazunov’s Four Novelettes). Under Ms. Bontrager’s leadership, Ballet Fantastique has also worked with Trio Voronezh, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Slavic Festival: Star-Filled Russian Nights (Silva Concert Hall). Ms. Bontrager’s love of the arts also extends to her design work as a graduate of the University of Oregon’s School of Architecture and in the creation of Ballet Fantastique’s critically-acclaimed costumes.

Photos: Woden Photo

Hannah Joy Bontrager

Hannah Joy Bontrager has studied the eight levels of the Vaganova Syllabus and Vaganova pedagogy with Donna Marisa Bontrager (Ballet Fantastique) while creating and performing works locally, and instructing classes at Ballet Fantastique for over ten years. In addition to spending two summers at the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington, D.C. under Artistic Director Oleg Vinogradov (also Artistic Director of the Kirov Ballet in Russia), she was one of five students invited internationally to join renowned Kirov prima ballerina Mme. Alla Sizova’s advanced class.

Hannah graduated in 2003 from the Academy of Colorado Ballet’s professional division under St. Petersburg Vaganova Academy graduate Inessa Pakri-Plekhanova, while concurrently training and performing with the company’s apprentices. In Fall 2006 she was invited by internationally-recognized master teacher Oleg Briansky to join the summer staff of his New York summer intensive program as a teacher and student mentor. Hannah graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from the Robert D. Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon, where, as a full scholarship student, she earned concurrent degrees in Dance and English Literature and a minor in Community Arts through the graduate Arts Administration program. Her honors thesis, Moving Education: Building an Integrated In-School Dance Curriculum for Elementary School Classrooms, explores the challenges and opportunities of dance education under the No Child Left Behind Act.

Hannah has performed as a guest dancer and/or contributing choreographer with a number of companies, including: Colorado Ballet Company, Manassas Ballet Theatre, Co-Art Dance Company, Traduza Dance Company, Rose Children’s Theater, and the Staton Foundation. She has been a soloist with the Ballet Fantastique Chamber Company under Artistic Director Donna Marisa Bontrager since 2003. Hannah has also been privileged to be coached by Dina Fadayeva.

Photos: Monovita, Mike Gilette

Leanne Mizzoni

Leanne Mizzoni is a native of the DC metro area, where trained with Metropolitan Ballet and Virginia Ballet Company with Ballet Russes dancers Oleg Tupine and Tania Rousseau. Leanne has also studied at Virginia School of the Arts and Joffrey Ballet. She holds a BFA in Dance Pedagogy (cum laude). She has been trained under Peggy Lyman, Peter O’Brian, Hilda Morales and Susan Brooker. Leanne taught professionally for seven years in Connecticut and Virginia and was the children’s assistant for Kirk Peterson’s production of Nutcracker with American Ballet Theatre. Leanne’s students have gone on to internationally-recognized summer programs.

Leanne is also a professional dancer, and was a soloist with the Manassas Ballet Theatre for four years. There, she performed roles in many ballets including The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Carmen, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coppelia, and Dracula, as well as original contemporary ballets and the Russian folk ballet Markitenka. Leanne is joined the Ballet Fantastique Chamber Company as a principal dancer in 2009.

Photos: Matthew Rocha, Luke Isley

Alanna Fisher

Alanna Fisher began her training with Nadine Cole at the Academy of Ballet Arts, in Arcata, California. For her last three years of high school, she attended the prestigious Rock School for Dance Education, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During her time there she trained with Bojan and Stephanie Spassoff, Mariaelena Ruiz, and Natalya Zieger. She has attended various summer programs including Long Beach Ballet's China Tour, San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and the School of American Ballet. For the past three years she has been a guest teacher for Dream Quest Youth Center, under the direction of Irene Treesong. She has also spent two years teaching for various dance schools in the Salt Lake City area.

Alanna graduated from the University of Utah with a BFA in ballet. While there she has had the opportunity to travel internationally to Berlin, Germany, where she trained and learned choreography at the Berlin State Ballet School. Alanna has also performed in Athens, Greece, and San Jose, Costa Rica, with the University of Utah's Character Dance Ensemble. While travelling with Character Dance Ensemble, she attended a workshop with the Dora Stratou Greek Dance. She was a member of Utah Ballet the Department's performing company for two years, and a member of Character Dance Ensemble for three. Alanna joined the Ballet Fantastique Chamber Company and teaching staff in 2011.

Photos: Monovita, Woden Photo

Naomi Todd

Naomi Todd began her training at Brightwood Dance and the Lake Oswego Academy of Dance, and has attended the Joffrey Ballet’s summer intensive in New York City. Naomi’s recent training experience includes coaching at the University of Oregon Dance Department and with The Academy of Ballet Fantastique, where she has performed a number of soloist roles (including the 2008 "Harlequin" at the Hult Center, reviewed by the Register-Guard’s Gwen Curran as "inventive, well-danced, and fun"). Naomi trains in Vaganova pedagogy under the direction of Donna Marisa Bontrager. Naomi graduated in June 2007 from the University of Oregon (including work in the Robert D. Clark Honors College) and competes throughout the Northwest as part of a semi-professional salsa performance ensemble. She also holds a masters degree from the UO’s top-ranked School of Education.