Artistic Staff

Shari Allen, holds BFA in Dance from Radford University and a Professional Educators Certificate by the state of Florida Department of Education, has studied with North Carolina School of the Arts, Richmond Ballet and Boston Ballet School. She has performed with Ballet Theatre of Boston, Boston Dance Co., Impulse Dance Co., Mill Mountain Theatre, Southwest Virginia Ballet and been a touring member of Lightwire Theater.

Ms. Allen taught ballet and jazz for the Harvard-Radcliffe Dance Department, the Jeanette Neill Dance Studio in Boston, the Fort Wayne Ballet, Florida Dance Association and the University of West Florida. She is a nationally certified Pilates instructor and is currently pursuing an M.S. in Art Education at Florida State University. For over 30 years, Shari has found her passion in teaching. When she is not working she loves spending time with her family, taking care of animals and creating art.

Ms. Lister received her early training at the Elvie DeMarko School in Pensacola, Florida. She continued her studies in New York at the Swoboda School, (later known as the Ballet Russe School), under the guiding hand of Madame Swoboda. Her other illustrious teachers included Frederic Franklin, Anatole Vilzak, Edward Caton, Boris Romanoff, William Dollar, Bill Griffith, Leon Danelian and Igor Schwezoff. She also attended New York University and Hunter College before joining the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo company.

She danced with the Ballet Russe for 5 years and worked with such renowned stars as Alicia Alonso, Maria Tallchief, Nina Novak, Alexandra Danilova, Igor Youskevitch, Frederick Franklin, Leon Danelian and Leonide Massine.

After leaving the Ballet Russe, she continued to pursue, develop and expand her talents, and made guest appearances with numerous Civic Ballet and Opera Companies. She performed many of the famous pas de deuxs from various ballets and such roles as The Firebird with the New York Philharmonic, the Detroit Symphony and the Hartford and New Haven Orchestras.

Her varied talents led her into musical theater where she performed on Broadway and Off-Broadway. She also appeared in summer and winter stock companies, Dinner Theaters and at the renowned Radio City Music Hall. She has worked in several theater positions advancing from the chorus of a musical to performing leading roles and to assisting directors and choreographers.

She began her teaching career at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. For two years she was on staff at the Kingsboro College of the Performing Arts, a college dedicated to the training of boys and girls at the college level. She was invited to join the teaching staff of the American Ballet Center, the official school of the Robert Joffrey Ballet Company. For 25 years, she not only headed the Children’s Department, but also taught technique and variations classes to the advanced and trainee levels. She also found time to coach dancers for various jobs and competitions, and actors and actresses for dance roles in television and film work. In 1978 she was asked to return to Broadway to perform in Michael Bennett’s musical Ballroom.

She has students performing in all mediums of dance from classical ballet companies to Radio City to Broadway and television. She was responsible for rehearsing 65 children for the New York performances of the Joffrey Ballet’s Nutcracker.

She considers correct training from the Beginner level to the Advanced level to be of the utmost importance and the teaching of children to be her forte. She developed a Pre-Ballet teaching syllabus that has been used at the Joffrey School for over 25 years. She is featured in two published books, Going to my First Ballet Class by Susan Kuklin and And they Danced On by Waltraud G.Karkar. She is the co-author of the book, Conversations with Choreographers, published in 1996.

In 1997 Dorothy moved back to her hometown and is presently the Ballet Mistress and teacher for the Northwest Florida Ballet Company and is the dance coach for the Tate High SchoolÕs Chaparrals and Cadets. She has choreographed musical shows (Fiddler on the Roof, Annie Get Your Gun, Guys and Dolls, South Pacific) for Tate High School. She continues to teach for the Joffrey School’s summer session. She was asked to be one of the prelimenary judges for the 1998 USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi. In 1999, she taught Ballet master classes for PANOPLY, Huntsville’s Festival of the Arts, and served as one of the judges for their 17th Annual Choreography Competition.

Conductor, composer, author and educator David Ott was born in Michigan and spent his youth in Janesville, Wisconsin, completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 1969. His Master’s degree in Piano Performance was earned at Indiana University in 1971, and he received his Doctorate in Music Theory & Composition at the University of Kentucky in 1982.

His young music career had immediate impact, and he was named Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville in 1987, and Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Kentucky, College of Fine Arts, in 1996. He was inducted into the University of Wisconsin-Platteville Hall of Fame in October 2007. He has served on the faculties of Houghton College (NY), Pfeiffer College (NC), and most recently DePauw University (IN), being honored as Outstanding Professor at two of these institutions. In 1991, he was named Composer-in-Residence of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and retained that position until 1997.

He served as Music Director/Conductor of the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra from 1999 through the spring of 2002. From 2001 through the spring of 2008 David Ott was Music Director and Conductor of the Philharmonic of Northwest Florida. He has also held the appointment of Pace Eminent Scholar and Composer in Residence at the University of West Florida. Currently he serves as Director of Music Ministries and Organist at Christ the King Episcopal Church in Santa Rosa Beach.

Ranking at the top of post-World War II born American composers, Dr. Ott’s works are among the most frequently performed of any American of the era. He has been cited as “one of the greats of American symphony music composers of the last quarter of the twentieth century.” Once nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in music by renowned cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, he has composed a large portfolio of compositions in every genre of music from large-scale orchestra works to short overtures.