Renee Campbell is one of those rare dancers who did not discover the dancer within until she was a teen.  Music had always been central to her life, and to the life of her entire family, but it wasn't until she discovered ballet in 9th grade that she found a way to bring her whole self to her musical expression.  Her first ballet teachers were principals of the National Ballet, the pre-cursor to today's Washington Ballet.  For her university studies, she was fortunate to be accepted into the ballet program of the Jordan School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN, despite her lack of early training.  There she studied with world renown dancers and teachers, including Nicholas Beriosoff, Marina Svetlova, Anton Dolin, John Kriza, Kenneth Melville, Jurgen Pagels and Anna Paskevska.  Mr. Beriosoff, the head of the ballet department, had been an assistant to Mikail Fokine in the 1930's chapter of the Ballets Russes and was given the creative rights to stage Fokine's ballets around the world.  As a member of the IU Ballet Theater, Renee danced in Mr. Beriosoff's productions of Firebird, Petrushka, Scenes de Ballet Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Copelia and the Nutcracker.

Thanks to the vigorous training she received at IU, after graduation Renee found a full-time contract with the NationalTheater in Mannheim Germany.  There she danced for three seasons in a wide repertoire of ballets and operas in both group and solo roles.  But friends and family soon drew her back to the US, where such generous working conditions were not available to ballet dancers :). Thus began her 2nd career, working full-time as a Trademark Legal Assistant in major law firms in the DC area.

Unable to give up dance entirely, Renee taught students of all ages and skill levels at a number of studios in the Metro area, while working full-time.  The highlights of her teaching include taking a group of high school students on a trip to China to perform with other international groups in the build-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2005; teaching both children and adults at three of the Joy of Motion locations, and teaching and choreographing for children and adults at the Dance Institute of Washington in Columbia Heights.  She received recognition not only for the quality of her instruction but also for her choreography.  For several years she worked as a performer and choreographer with Five Dancing, an adult dance group based in Columbia, MD.  Along the way Renee added a Pilates Comprehensive certification from BASI (Body Arts and Sciences International) to her movement repertoire, and has been teaching Pilates mat and equipment since 2010.  Currently, Renee teaches both Ballet and Pilates, having retired from legal work some years ago.

Renee believes that just as every movement contains the seeds of a dance, every individual contains the seeds of a dancer.  Her greatest joy as an instructor is to nurture those seeds and watch as they grow and bloom.