Our Mission: Provide Scholarship opportunities to ballet students currently taking classes at En Pointe Ballet who are dealing with financial hardship. Scholarship recipients who are chosen based on financial need will receive scholarship funds paid directly to their tuition and costume rentals. Recipients will be privately selected and these fees paid through the non-profit.  

 

Our Vision: Our future goals are to be able to invite more male dancers in particular to study ballet on scholarship. We would like to be able to collect sufficient funding to facilitate our male dancers to attend summer intensives at other schools to receive more training and experience. There are many options for intensives in Utah as well as other states, but they are cost prohibitive for most of our men. Ballet needs more well trained male dancers. Our male dancers need more varied experiences to be able to succeed in the world of professional ballet dancers and to be prepared to audition and be accepted into college ballet programs and professional companies. Our Legacy scholarship will be able to bless the lives of our dancers, their families and also the many patrons of the arts who will be able to see them dance and help to launch careers for more male ballet danseurs.

 

This organization is organized exclusively for charitable & educational purposes under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, to provide Scholarship opportunities to ballet students at En Pointe School of Ballet who are dealing with financial hardship. 

• Scholarships are based on financial need for our students due to parental job loss, divorce, death, or other financial hardship.
• Scholarships are designed to recognize and reward exceptional talent, dedication, and commitment to the art of ballet.
• Anyone is welcome to register and attend classes at En Pointe School of Ballet and apply for this scholarship. 
• Scholarship recipients are chosen by the board annually and are limited at this time to funds received through the Legacy Scholarship donations. 
• Scholarship is not guaranteed to all students who apply

 

EPB Legacy Scholarship Story

En Pointe School of Ballet is located in West Jordan, Utah. We are the only studio in West Jordan specializing exclusively in Classical Ballet with full-length story ballet performances in June and Nutcracker in December of each year. Our philosophy is the preservation of long standing ballet traditions and technique. We have an on site Ballet Boutique to sell ballet attire and pointe shoes, as well as all things needed for boys and men's proper ballet attire. 

 

En Pointe Ballet is unique due to our successful boys' program with over 30 boys and men. It is our philosophy that boys need to be in classes with other boys to embrace the masculinity and athleticism of classical ballet. Even in Utah our numbers of male dancers are higher than other studios. We have 3 levels of boys classes and 2 men's technique classes, 4 levels of pas de deux (partnering classes) that meet weekly. Our dancers are learning and performing professional level choreography and variations in our performances.

 

Through my years of teaching and operating this ballet school, I have observed numerous young men who often have to stop their ballet training for financial reasons as soon as they become teenagers or after high school when they begin college. Many are from the same families which is difficult for these families to afford for all of their boys to dance. A few have had to pay for their own ballet classes and struggle to balance homework, after school jobs, in addition to their ballet classes and rehearsals. Some fathers do not support their boys' ballet training as they get older & without a scholarship many of these teens cannot continue. 

 

Currently the students who are on need-based scholarship at En Pointe School of Ballet do not pay for their tuition or costumes.  For years it has been a financial loss for our business, and we are happy to contribute to help these dancers. We began asking for donations in our performance programs and ticketing website during our 2023 performance of the Nutcracker and received several donations from our patrons. We are currently implementing a new policy for our boutique staff to ask customers in our boutique to round up to contribute to our scholarship fund. I believe that these little things will add up to accomplish great things.

 

Mrs. Rachael's Scholarship Story

 Rachael Ellis, our Artistic Director and the owner of En Pointe School of Ballet was able to complete her ballet training due to a scholarship when her dad lost his job. "I understand personally the heartbreak parents and students experience when they feel they have no other choice except to give up their ballet training. It is devastating to give up ballet, which fills a significant portion of their time and talents, as well as their hopes and dreams for the future. Our scholarships are based on financial need for our students due to hardships such as parental job loss, single parents due to divorce or death, other family hardships, as well as students who are required by their parents to pay for their own activities. Anyone is welcome to register and attend classes at En Pointe School of Ballet. While the primary purpose of this scholarship program is to support boys and men in their ballet training, this scholarship fund is also used for supporting female dancers who may face the same hardships. Any time a parent tries to withdraw their student, male or female, from classes for any of these reasons, I always offer them a private scholarship. With sponsors and donations, in time we will be able to help more students than we were previously able to support"  ~ Rachael 

 

Sponsors Needed

As this non-profit becomes known to our community, we hope have more donors, sponsors and support for fund raising activities. This scholarship fund furthers our purposes by bringing more attention to the financial needs of dancers who would not be able to take ballet classes or perform without scholarships. By bringing our scholarship nonprofit to the attention of all of our patrons, we should be able to generate more donations since they will be able to deduct them on their own taxes now that we have a 501c3 scholarship fund. We are truly grateful for each and every donation.