Virginia Hartman

Virginia Hartman had her early training in ballet under Anita Lin in Youngstown and furthered her training at The Richmond School of Ballet under many well known teachers like Ruth Petrinovic, David Howard, Lordes Lopez, Malcolm Burns, and Leslie Peck to name a few. Following high school graduation, Virginia danced professionally with The Richmond Ballet and later joined The Atlanta Ballet. Upon retiring from the stage, she returned to her hometown and began teaching master classes and coaching pre-professional and competition dancers of all ages. Several of Virginia’s students have been accepted into some of the nation’s leading dance intensives such as American Ballet Theatre, BalletMet, Cincinnati Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet, San Francisco Conservatory, The Joffery School of Dance, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and many have achieved careers as professional dancers, teachers, and choreographers. After nearly 10 years teaching competition dancers she joined the faculty at Ballet Western Reserve in 2007 as Ballet Mistress and Children’s Director leading to her appointment as Artistic & School Director there from 2011- 2014.  During that time Virginia choreographed and staged three full-length productions of The Nutcracker, and directed Appalachian Spring in collaboration with The Youngstown Symphony Orchestra. She directed and choreographed several new works and was credited with multiple collaborations with numerous organizations in the area.

Virginia was honored to be a judge and ballet scholarship class instructor for the Ohio Dance Masters of America title competition in Columbus, Ohio and has also judged the Cecchetti Council of America’s Summer scholarship competition for Northeastern Ohio. Virginia is an American Ballet Theatre certified instructor in ABT’s National Training Curriculum in levels Pre-primary through Level 7 & Partnering and is a member of the International Association of Dance Medical Science.  Currently, Virginia is starting her third year as the director & teacher of the ballet program for the National Competition Team at Krystie’s Dance Academy in Warren, Ohio.