History
Mary Paula Hunter founded east side ballet after teaching and directing college dance programs at Hamilton College, Holy Cross, Brown, RISD, among others. Her goal in starting a dance studio was to remedy what she found to be a lack of good training in Classical Ballet amongst many of her college students. She wanted to offer dance students, from the first day of their training, placement-based, NYC-style Ballet training. Her experience teaching at the college level reinforced what she already knew: bad habits die hard and poor training is hard to rectify. She also wanted to create a dance training program that not only emphasized anatomically-based Ballet training but that also encouraged dancers to choreograph and think of dance as a creative art. Her experience proved that training in choreography and composition also had to begin early.
What began in a room in St. Martin's Church on Providence's East Side some 15 years ago has blossomed into a full-fledged dance training studio affiliated with Hunter's extraordinarily creative and unique youth-based dance company, JUMP! (jumpdancecompany.org).
