PROFESSIONAL TRAINING DIVISION

Our year-round finishing school (ages 14+) designed to prepare advanced dancers for a professional career. The PTD consists of 11 dancers and is led by former principal dancers from the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Lindsi Dec and Karel Cruz (DeCruz directors).
***This daytime program is meant to enhance each dancer’s artistry and strengthen their technique to become the best they can be****, while upholding a positive uplifting environment including our beSolu athlete’s mindset:*
be yourself
trust your training
spread positivity
harness physical & mental strength

PTD alumni in the professional world!

join our talented group of serious young dancers from all over the country & train under lindsi dec & karel cruz…

Program Structure:
Monday - Friday 9:30-2:30/3:00pm, and Saturdays 9:00-2:30pm
Weekly classes include cross-training, PBT, ballet technique, pointe, variations, men’s class, Pilates, Pas de Deux (partnering), rehearsals, and genre classes, such as contemporary, modern and more!
Our PTD dancers perform at the UTSA Buena Vista Theater each November, presenting our Nutcracker as well as mixed genre repertoire. The last two seasons they performed at the Tobin black box theater for our Spring Mixed Repertoire performances, which has in the past included pas de deux, classical variations, & contemporary works choreographed just for them.
Many of our dancers will also be competing on the DeCruz Ballet Competition Team in the Universal Ballet Competition (UBC) and ADC IBC where they will be presenting both classical and contemporary variations.
In May 2022 we took our PTD dancers down to San Jose, Costa Rica where they were invited to perform in the Ballet San Jose Festival! Mr. Karel and Miss Lindsi were selected to be the guest master teachers for the festival and were so excited to be able to give our PTDs this unique opportunity!
In August 2023, DeCruz held a 4 day workshop in Kahului, Maui.
At DeCruz, we recognize the benefit of performing - it is truly a practice! Multiple times throughout the year, we hold in-studio performances that are open to family & friends in person and on zoom!
Additionally, all of our PTD and Homeschool Intermediate Ballet Program dancers will be guesting in Dripping Springs, TX this December 2023. We will be bringing snow, flowers, sugar plum marzipan, hot chocolate into the Central Texas Youth Ballet’s “The Nutcracker”.
Whether our dancers wish to dance in a ballet company or a contemporary company in their future, DeCruz Ballet prepares them for success in both realms!
Aside from their ballet classes, students will benefit from contemporary classes, Horton technique (modern), and learning various styles of dance through choreography as well.
Acceptance into our PTD is by audition only. If you are aged 13+ (depending on skill level) we invite you to email us at decruzballet@gmail.com so that we may set up a class for you to audition with our PTDs. We warmly welcome any questions and hope to hear from you!
ANOTHER WAY TO AUDITION… is to register online for a summer intensive audition and attend — the summer intensive audition for 2024 doubles as an audition for our PTD program. If you are interested, please email us. The Advanced Winter Workshop is another great way to experience the PTD program and audition.
You may also send a VIDEO audition if you aren’t able to visit in person! Please click here for the requirements of a video submission. If you audition via video, please also send us a headshot, photo in first arabesque en pointe and your video to decruzballet@gmail.com.
Currently the dancers in our PTD have moved to San Antonio to train with us all the way from Washington, Indiana, Houston, and Florida. While we do not offer housing, many of our dancers are roommates and we are happy to help set our dancers up to be roommates in the coming year as well.
Along with the physical training, we also provide our PTD dancers with…
* Guidance for seeking a career as a professional dancer, as well as assistance in preparations for company, dance colleges, and summer intensive auditions. Included in this guidance is resume & reel assistance, audition photos, and filming for audition videos. We are very accommodating to our graduating, auditioning dancers who may need to miss a day or two to travel for auditions.
* An encouraging environment to train in, based strongly in our core values at DeCruz: spreading positivity, being yourself, harnessing physical AND mental strength, trusting your training!
* We have our very own Pilates instructor on hand as well as a recommended Physical Therapist to see should any injury arise. Our Physical Therapist also provides mini sessions twice a month in our studio. Your health is our top priority while you are training with us, and we are passionate about working smart. Injury prevention is an essential part of a dancer’s training and our PTD’s are equipped with this as a part of their weekly schedule (cross-training & Pilates).

INTERNATIONAL & national training and performance opportunities!

Our PTD dancers perform at the UTSA Buena Vista Theater each November, presenting our Nutcracker as well as mixed genre repertoire. Every spring we have a mixed repertoire performance celebrating each of our dancers, including repertoire from 5 different classical ballets as well as contemporary works choreographed just for them in the neoclassical style en pointe. This range of styles helps to prepare them for a professional career.

Additional guesting/touring opportunities have included the the Ballet San Jose Festival in Costa Rica (May 2022) where our dancers took masterclasses, learned choreography and performed contemporary, classical repertoire as well as a pas de deux. Another touring opportunity involved bringing our own choreography (waltz of the snowflakes, waltz of the flowers, marzipan, sugar plum fairy, hot chocolate) to the Central Texas Youth Ballet’s Nutcracker in Dripping Springs, Texas (December 2023).

Many of our dancers also choose to join our DeCruz Ballet Competition Team in which they rehearse beginning in September through April, performing/competing both classical and contemporary solos/variations at the Universal Ballet Competition (UBC) and ADCIBC. We hold in studio dress rehearsals throughout the year to help our dancers grow by giving them more opportunities to perform in front of an audience and work through any nerves. The DBCT is not a requirement for our PTD dancers, however the majority of them choose to join.

We are looking forward to adding in more performance opportunities at dance festivals this spring and the following school year, as well as building more workshops for our dancers to attend at an international level. Past workshops included: San Jose, Costa Rica (‘22), Maui, Hawaii (’23), and we’ll have our workshop in London, England this August 2024.