Faculty

Faculty Biographies

Meet the experienced teachers and staff who guide every dancer at the Northwest Ballet School & Company.

Marisa Roth

Marisa Roth, Owner and Director of the Northwest Ballet School & Company, is a lifer when it comes to ballet. She began dance at the young age of 3 with the NWB and continued training through college, where she graduated from Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania with a BA in Dance with a Teaching/Choreography Concentration. Marisa danced with the Lake Erie Ballet Company for three years, performing lead roles in ballets such as Nutcracker, Coppélia, Giselle and Serenade before returning to the Flathead to teach. She took over the Northwest Ballet in January 2007, continuing to grow the program to offer the following dance disciplines: Ballet, Pointe, Pas de Deux, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Hip-Hop, Cheer, Musical Theatre, Contemporary/Lyrical, Ballroom, and Breakdancing. Her Company performs two shows a year with their annual Nutcracker (37th this season) and spring Mother's Day performances (46th this season), which have included Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Alice in Wonderland, and Phantom of the Opera. Additionally, both branches of the Northwest Ballet School perform annual end-of-year Student Showcase Recitals; Kalispell in their 49th, and Whitefish in their 24th. Marisa served for seven years as Secretary on the Board of the Montana Dance Arts Association (MDAA) and four years as President of the organization. She has taught dance in over eleven different cities throughout the state of Montana and has had alumni dancers in colleges throughout the U.S. including Montana, Utah, California, and Arizona. Marisa holds her Pre-Primary through Level 3 teaching certification from American Ballet Theatre's (ABT's) National Training Curriculum in New York City since 2018, after being awarded a $3,000 Teacher's Fellowship from MDAA at that Spring's Workshop. She has performed as a member of AzureVision Dance Collective (founded in 2005), a Modern Dance Company in the Flathead Valley. The past four Nutcracker seasons Marisa has been chosen as the local studio liaison for San Diego Ballet Company's production here in Kalispell with the Glacier Symphony. She's had the privilege of working with dance students from almost a dozen different dance studios throughout the Valley while rehearsing all the choreography each season. Marisa is also active in Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) as the Women's Day Class's Substitute Teaching Leader. Marisa and her husband Michael live in beautiful Creston, MT, near the Flathead River.

Kylee Brewer

Kylee Brewer danced at the Northwest Ballet School for 17 years, and was a member of the Northwest Ballet Company for 4 of those. She enjoys a variety of dance disciplines and has studied Modern, Tap, Hip-Hop, Pointe, and Ballet. Kylee was a student member of Montana Dance Arts Association (MDAA), and received a Tap scholarship in 2017 to attend a week-long summer intensive dance workshop in Great Falls. A homeschooled high school graduate, she enjoys going for walks, reading, and working on the family's farm. Kylee currently works at the Boys and Girls Club in Columbia Falls. This is Kylee's eighth year on staff at the Northwest Ballet School and she is always excited to share her love of dance with students as she teaches Happy Feet and Tap classes this season. Kylee is also the Northwest Ballet School's Recital Costume Coordinator for our Spring Student Showcase Recitals.

Barbara Otey

Barbara Otey started Ballet at age 9 and was a founding member of the Littleton Ballet Academy in Colorado. She was also heavily involved in community and school theatre programs in Colorado and Montana. After moving to Montana, she studied at the School of Classical Ballet in Billings. She was a scholarship recipient for the Summer Dance Lab in Walla Walla, WA in 2008, and attended the Kansas City Ballet summer intensive in 2009. She studied dance at Colorado State University and taught for a semester at Colorado Academy of the Arts, before transferring to Alma College in Michigan. Barbara holds a Bachelor's degree in Integrative Physiology and Health Sciences, and has taught at Venture Theatre, Miss Linda's School of Dance, Academy of the Performing Arts, and now Northwest Ballet. Barbara's favorite style of dance to do is Modern and her favorite style to teach is Musical Theatre. This is her fifth year on staff at the Northwest Ballet School where she instructs the Happy Feet, Elementary Ballet, Beginning Ballet, and Musical Theatre classes.

Katherine Averill

Katherine Averill is a recent graduate of Case Western Reserve University where she completed an MA in Contemporary Dance. Her undergraduate included a BFA in Dance Science and a BS in Human Food and Nutrution, as well as an AA in Dance Performance. She has also completed her RYT-200 in Laramie, WY. Katherine has experience teaching yoga and dance throughout Wyoming, Ohio and Montana, and has also had the honor of performing on stages across the US including in the Kennedy Center. In her free time she loves being outside with her family, her husband Carson and daughter Savannah, as well as their two dogs Ollie and Moose. They love hiking, camping, horseback riding, and anything that involves the water. This is Katherine's third season teaching at the Northwest Ballet School, and she is the instructor for all three levels of the Jazz/Contemporary/Lyrical/Modern classes.

Elaine Leatzow

Elaine Leatzow, Northwest Ballet School Office Manager