Melissa Stafford
Peabody Dance Department Chair
Melissa Stafford studied ballet with Marcia Dale Weary at the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet (CPYB) in Carlisle, PA and spent four years as a student teacher at CPYB under Weary’s guidance. After teaching for a children’s community dance program at Houghton College (where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology), Stafford joined the Peabody Dance ballet faculty in 2001. She was appointed to the full-time faculty in 2002 and named the ballet program coordinator in 2005. In 2006, Stafford became the ballet principal for the Patel Conservatory Youth Ballet located at the David A. Straz, Jr. Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa, FL. During her six years at that school, she served both as full-time faculty and as program manager, working for Artistic Director Peter Stark. Stafford returned to Peabody in June 2012 as the Dance department chair.
Additionally, Stafford has been on the part-time faulty of Goucher College and has taught for CPYB’s 5-Week Summer Program, Orlando Ballet’s Summer Intensive, and Next Generation Ballet’s Summer Intensive (Tampa, FL). She taught and coached students in Next Generation Ballet’s audition-only Trainee Program from 2010-2012. Stafford was responsible for rehearsing students for children’s roles in Orlando Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker from 2006-2009. In addition to her teaching and coaching credits, she has also choreographed several original works for ballet students that have been performed in Pennsylvania, New York and Maryland. Stafford is the 1999 recipient of the Regional Dance America/Northeast Region Monticello Award for emerging female choreographers.
