Sharon Newton is a respected artist, and an accomplished dancer and teacher. She co-founded the Capitol Ballet Center and Capitol Ballet Company in 1999.
Born in Miami, Florida, Ms. Newton began her dance training as the recipient of a Ford Foundation Scholarship at the School of Garden State Ballet. She later joined the Company and held the position of Principal. She worked with Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and Arizona Dance Theater from 1984-1986, before accepting an invitation from Ivan Nagy to join Cincinnati Ballet as Principal Dancer. She has danced lead roles in many Balanchine ballets including Concerto Barocco, Symphony in C, Who Cares, Scotch Symphony, and Serenade, as well as most of the classical repertoire. She later joined Basel Ballet as a soloist from 1986-1992, and danced the contemporary ballets of Judith Jamison, Van Manen, Bejart, and Paul Taylor.
Ms. Newton’s long association with ballet pedagogue Gabriella Darvash, as protégé and designated heir to her teaching method and style, provided her with years of extensive teacher training. She was Principal Teacher at the Darvash Ballet School in New York City from 1981-1987, and demonstrated the Darvash technique in a televised documentary on the Ballet Master. Ms. Newton was a Guest Teacher at Broadway Dance Center in New York City from 1993-1996, and was Guest Teacher with the school of Ballet Hispanico in New York and Dance Masters of America.
In 1995, Ms. Newton was a Guest Teacher at Sacramento High School’s Visual and Performing Arts Centre, and assisted in building the first Ballet Program at a public school in Sacramento. She later went on to develop and teach in the Ballet Department at the Natomas Charter School for Performing and Fine Arts Academy from 1997-2001. Ms. Newton taught from 2007-2009 at the Paul Taylor West Coast Dance Intensive.
Ms. Newton is currently expanding the repertory of Capitol Ballet Company by restaging many of the classics, including Swan Lake, Giselle, La Bayadere, Paquita, Sylvia, and Coppelia.
