New Youth Ballet Company to Serve Fox Valley
A new youth ballet company has come to the Fox Valley in Wisconsin - Makaroff Youth Ballet (MYB). Jeanette Makaroff serves as MYB's artistic director. She is a former soloist with the Milwaukee Ballet and served as its ballet mistress until she returned to Appleton, Wisconsin to continue her family's legacy.
Photo: Woodrow Leung
Jennifer Edmondson, MYB board president stated, "The former Fox Valley Youth Ballet Theatre (founded by Juanita Makaroff), which recently disbanded, has offered their remaining financial support to the new organization. We are very thankful to them." Juanita Makaroff will play an active role in the new organization, Makaroff Youth Ballet, holding Emeritus status.
MYB continues the legacy of excellence in ballet that was started by Nikolai and Juanita Makaroff 47 years ago. Nikolai was trained in the studios of the Bolshoi Theatre. He was captured by the Nazis during World War II, and when the war ended, Nikolai and other performers traveled throughout Europe performing for war survivors in hopes of lifting the people's spirits, as well as earning a meal. Makaroff met his wife Juanita in New York City, where she was studying at the School of American Ballet. After marrying and starting a family, the couple moved to Appleton to be closer to Juanita's family.
In 1960, the Makaroffs founded The Makaroff School of Ballet and their reputations for ballet excellence quickly reached the ears of famed Green Bay Packer coach Vince Lombardi who hired Nikolai to teach ballet to the Packers, including Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, and others. Lombardi understood the athletic strength and balance required of ballet dancers and wanted his players to have the same training.
Nikolai and Juanita's daughter Jeanette Makaroff continues her family's legacy by bringing with her over 45 years of experience in the dance world. She began ballet lessons at an early age and when she was 13 she accomplished a most unusual feat. She earned a full scholarship to the renowned North Carolina School of the Arts, a conservatory boarding school focusing on a professional ballet career.
After graduation, she toured professionally with the North Carolina Dance Theatre for four years. She then joined the Milwaukee Ballet, attaining the rank of soloist and then later as ballet mistress, training the company's own dancers. A large number of her students have gone on to professional ballet careers.
MYB's upcoming performance plans include local performances in the Fox Valley area, including a performance with the Fox Valley Symphony, a tour of central Wisconsin, and a holiday concert of the "Nutcracker," Acts I and II.