Deborah Wingert- Co-Artistic Director & Head of Faculty- began her training at the Central Pennsylvania Youth ballet under Marcia Dale Weary and became a scholarship student at the School of American Ballet in New York. At the age of sixteen, she was selected by George Balanchine to join New York City Ballet. During her thirteen years with the company, Ms. Wingert danced over twenty-five principal, soloist, and featured roles in productions that include Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Coppelia, Orpheus, Symphony in C, Jewels, Who Cares?, Stars and Stripes,The Nutcracker, The Four Temperaments, and Mozartiana, Jerome Robbins’ The Concert and Antique Epigraphs, and Peter Martins’ The Sleeping Beauty. A principal and soloist with numerous nationally acclaimed companies, her film and television credits include The Nutcracker (Time-Warner), PBS “Great Performance” Dinner With Balanchine, “Dance in America” Balanchine - Serenade and Western Symphony, Peter Martins’ Concerto for Two Solo Pianos and “Live from Lincoln Center” A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Deborah Wingert is one of a small group of artists selected by the Balanchine Trust to set his choreography. In this capacity she has traveled throughout the United States, setting and staging the Balanchine repertoire for Joffrey Ballet Chicago, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Indiana University, Baltimore School for the Arts, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, to name a few.

Ms. Wingert is Co-Artistic Director and Head of Faculty at Manhattan Youth Ballet, and on faculty at the Juilliard School.  She has been a guest instructor for Princeton University and Harvard University, as well as Interlochen, Jessica Lang Dance, Kyle Abraham: AIM, Sarasota Ballet, and New York City Ballet.