Catherine Livengood Lewellen

Catherine Livengood Lewellen has been teaching and coaching classical and contemporary ballet for the past 25 years in pre-professional training programs, homeschool training academies, competitive teams and coaching students and small groups towards careers in dance, YAGP, and other ballet competitions.  As a young dancer, she attended The Harid Conservatory in Florida on full scholarship in their year round program, as well as Booker T Washington High School, where she was in the repertory company and became a YoungArts scholarship recipient at 15. During the summers she trained as a scholarship student at several prestigious schools including American Ballet Theatre, The School of American Ballet, Boston Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, LINES Contemporary Ballet, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre where she joined the company as a trainee after graduating two years early at the age of 16. While there Catherine met Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson who invited her to work with Complexions Contemporary Ballet. She also had the pleasure of being mentored by Alonzo King during this time and performing his work. Catherine also attended The Juilliard School and continued working with Complexions while in NYC. Later after stepping away from the professional dance world and moving back to Texas, Catherine graduated summa cum laude from The University of Texas at Dallas with a double major in Psychology and Early Childhood Development and holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling from Southern Methodist University, where she specialized in working with children and adolescents. 

 

Catherine began student teaching at 16 as well as choreographing and continued this through her professional career and academic studies. She has trained, mentored, and coached students that have become Texas Young Masters, Presidential Scholars of the Arts, and others who are now in prominent schools and companies all over the world, including Stuttgart Ballet and the John Cranko Schule, Nederlands Dans Theater 2, Boston Ballet 2, Royal Ballet School, ABT’s JKO, Ballet Dortmund, Stattstheater Nurnberg, European School of Ballet, The Juilliard School, Los Angeles Ballet, School of American Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet School, Complexions Contemporary Ballet, USC, SYTYCD, Oklahoma City Ballet, Ballet Austin and Miami City Ballet among others. Yearning for artistic freedom to fully train and coach serious ballet students in her own format and method, Catherine founded Elite Classical Coaching in August of 2017. Since then, she has received multiple Outstanding Choreographer and Teacher awards and ECC has also alternated between being awarded YAGP’s Outstanding School or Outstanding Teacher/Faculty at various regionals every year since starting in 2018. Since then, her students have also been awarded the Hope Award, the Youth Grand Prix award, and the Grand Prix award at YAGP regionals each year. Her students have won big at YAGP finals including being awarded the Hope award, Youth Grand Prix award, 1st place Classical Pas de Deux, 2nd place Contemporary Pas de Deux, 2nd place Sr Male, 2nd place Jr Female, 2nd place Pre-Competitive soloist, Top 12 Pre-Competitive Female, Top 12 Jr and Sr Male. They have also done well being awarded the Grand Prix in the Primary and Jr Division at ADCIBC and multiple gold, silver, and bronze medals at ADCIBC. Aside from placing many of her students into top professional companies and schools around the world, her students have also been sought out and personally invited to be in movies and television series such as NBC's hit show World of Dance and to audition for Marguerite Derricks. Catherine, ECC, and her students have been featured in such publications as Pointe magazine, PointePeople.com, Voyage magazine, FriscoStyle, A Ballet Education magazine cover story and Top Schools lists, abroad in Europe in newspapers and online articles, on all of the local news channels here in Frisco, and Local Profile, among others.

 

Catherine has found her niche in preparing students for international competitions and elite careers in ballet and has coached multiple students to win gold, silver, and bronze medals at the top international ballet competitions including Helsinki IBC, Prix de Lausanne, YAGP Finals, ADCIBC Finals, World Ballet Competition, and most recently the USAIBC in Jackson, Mississippi. Catherine coached 15 year old student Ava Arbuckle who won the Silver Medal and the Nureyev Young Talent award in 2020. She was one of the youngest competitors and was awarded a full scholarship to further her training year round at the John Cranko Schule in Stuttgart Germany, where she was offered a corps contract at 16 and is now in her third year in the Stuttgart Ballet. In 2022, after winning the Youth Grand Prix Award at YAGP Finals, ECC student Alexei Orohovsky traveled to Finland where he won the Silver Medal and the Jury Encouragement Award as the youngest competitor at Helsinki IBC. Catherine’s award winning choreography is often featured at these events as well and has been invited and been performed in such international events and galas as the YAGP 25th Anniversary Kick off Gala in Lincoln Center, Nervi Festival in Italy, Stars of Today meet the Stars of Tomorrow YAGP Galas (multiple years), the John Cranko Schule’s 50th Anniversary Gala in Germany, Cancun Ballet Festival, Juilliard’s Choreography Composition program, Regional Dance America’s Emerging Choreographer’s Showcase, Joffrey Ballet School’s Trainee Showcase and the YGP Mexico’s Closing Gala. She has also restaged several ballets including Paquita, La Bayadere, Swan Lake, Coppelia and staged an excerpt of Mercy on Complexions Contemporary Ballet Summer Intensive students. 

 

ECC has recently become an international training company with young students relocating from other countries to benefit from her training, coaching, and unique custom approach and mentoring.  Students are being sought after for ambassadorships and to represent products, photographers, and brands such as Jule Dancewear, Nikolay Grishko, The Pointe Shop, Black Swan Brand, RubiaWear and Dallas Dance Project. They have also been invited to perform in international galas around the world and regularly receive scholarships from the top schools and companies across the nation for summer programs and year round programs mentioned previously. Wanting to be able to provide scholarships and offer more ways for talented and deserving young dancers to train at ECC, Catherine (with the support of some wonderful families and supporters of ECC) has created a non-profit, the ECC Foundation, designed to raise funds for ECC students to offset training and competition travel expenses. She hopes this will open more doors for ECC students and alumni to be supported in more ways than ever before while supporting the teachers and mission of ECC to the fullest. Catherine and her husband Les currently reside in Frisco, TX with their three children and are actively involved in their children’s school and local church.