In 1987, a former Bolshoi dancer chose an unmarked warehouse on Steger's Industrial Avenue to build something unexpected. That warehouse is now the Steger City Ballet Academy, where 340 students train annually across five studios totaling 12,000 square feet—each with sprung Marley floors, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and natural light from restored factory windows.
Programs for Every Stage
Whether you're six years old in your first pair of slippers or eighteen months from audition season, our curriculum meets you where you are. Beginners start with creative movement and foundational technique. Intermediate students add pointe work, partnering, and variations. Our pre-professional division, limited to 24 dancers, operates on a conservatory schedule: four hours daily, six days weekly, with coursework in dance history, anatomy, and career navigation.
Adult learners aren't an afterthought here. Morning and evening open classes accommodate working schedules, and our "Ballet for Bodies That Have Lived" series specifically addresses flexibility, balance, and confidence for dancers starting or returning after decades away.
Faculty with Stage Experience
Artistic Director Elena Voss trained at the Vaganova Academy before twelve years with Stuttgart Ballet, finishing as a principal. She leads a faculty of seven, all with professional company experience:
- Marcus Chen, former soloist with San Francisco Ballet, directs men's technique and contemporary partnering
- Amara Okafor, fifteen seasons with Dance Theatre of Harlem, heads our diversity outreach and community programming
- Dmitri Volkov, former répétiteur for the Balanchine Trust, teaches advanced technique and stages our annual Nutcracker
Each student receives written technical assessments twice yearly and optional one-on-one coaching sessions.
Where Our Dancers Perform
Last season, our students performed 34 times—at Steger's Summer Arts Festival, at Chicago's Harris Theater, and at the Youth America Grand Prix finals in New York. Pre-professional dancers tour biennially; recent destinations include Toronto, Hamburg, and São Paulo.
But not every performance requires a plane ticket. Our "Ballet in the Blocks" initiative brings abbreviated programs to Steger Public Schools, senior centers, and the county juvenile detention facility. These 45-minute presentations include demonstration, narration, and audience participation. They're how we build audiences, yes—but also how we remind ourselves why this art form matters.
A Community That Holds You Up
The ballet world can be isolating. We've chosen differently.
Our mentorship program pairs each new student with someone two levels ahead. Peer study groups meet weekly in our second-floor lounge. Alumni return monthly—sometimes to teach master classes, sometimes just to warm up alongside current students and talk through what professional life actually looks like.
We've also partnered with Steger Public Schools' arts magnet program since 2003, providing free weekly classes to 60 students who might otherwise never encounter formal training. Three of those students have graduated into our pre-professional division on full scholarship.
What Training Here Costs (and What It Yields)
We won't pretend ballet training is inexpensive. We will say that 40% of our students receive some form of assistance, funded by our annual gala and an endowment established by a 1998 alumnus now dancing with Dutch National Ballet. Need-based awards cover up to full tuition; merit scholarships recognize exceptional progress regardless of financial circumstances.
Our injury prevention protocol includes on-site physical therapy twice weekly, mandatory cross-training in our conditioning room, and annual screenings with a sports medicine specialist from University of Chicago Medicine. We track outcomes carefully: over the past decade, 73% of pre-professional graduates have secured professional contracts or conservatory placements within twelve months of completing our program.
How to Begin
Visit us. Watch a class. Talk to students in the hallway and see whether this feels like where you belong.
Open houses run monthly, September through May. Summer intensive auditions happen each January; our five-week program draws students from fourteen states. Adult drop-in classes require no advance registration—check the schedule, bring comfortable clothes, and arrive fifteen minutes early.
The academy stands at 1847 Industrial Avenue, three blocks from the Metra Electric Line's Steger station, with free parking in our adjacent lot. Questions? Call 708-555-0142, email [email protected], or message us through Instagram or Facebook.
Your first class is complimentary. Your last one here might be anywhere in the world.
