From Frisco to the World Stage: A Local Dance Director Nurtures Ballet’s Next Generation
By Stephen Hunt
Ballet’s origins date back to the 15th Century Italian Renaissance. However, it later evolved into its current concert dance form in two countries it’s forever associated with, France and Russia. In the centuries since, ballet has spread around the globe and has delighted millions with the impressive artistry, talent, and dedication of its many performers.
Many dancers start young, like Catherine Livengood Lewellen, a Richardson native who is the owner and founder of Elite Classical Coaching (ECC) in Frisco, which opened in 2017. Lewellen remembers her first dance class at age three before later deciding she wanted dance at the center of her life.
“My mom put me in classes. I had no idea [what I wanted to do],” she recalled. “At nine, I said, ‘I’m not going to college. I’m only going to dance.’ She was like, ‘We can talk about it later,’ and I was like, ‘No, that’s what I’m going to do, just letting everybody know.’ I was very headstrong.”
At 11, Lewellen’s dogged determination was apparent after learning about The HARID Conservatory in Florida, which provides professional training for gifted young dancers as she immediately pledged to one day train there. “They had an anonymous donor. They give free tuition. You have to pay room and board and other things, but that’s what they advertised,” she said. “It was a good school. I wanted to go there. I think they took seven girls a year. I put the poster on my wall at 11 and said, ‘I’m going there when I’m a freshman.’”
Lewellen was 13 when she left for Florida. However, she and her parents quickly realized the environment there wasn’t a great one, especially as one of the youngest dancers. “Our school was small, only 30 people,” she said. “You’re in the same place and around things you probably shouldn’t be around at that age. That was a problem. They [my parents] saw me by December and didn’t like the changes that were happening. By March, they brought me home. I was pretty angry, but I was home.”
She then attended Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts in downtown Dallas, where she was in the repertory company and received a YoungArts scholarship at 15. “Ms. Cat” as her students now call her, graduated high school at 16 and went to train with Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre in 1997. In 2000, she danced at The Juilliard School in New York.
Since returning to Texas in 2004, Lewellen earned an undergraduate degree in psychology and early childhood development, graduating summa cum laude, from the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and a graduate degree in counseling with a focus on children and adolescents from Southern Methodist University (SMU), two degrees which help her greatly in teaching dance.
Lewellen started teaching ballet as a teenager and was quickly hooked. What she loves most about it is finding those “diamonds in the rough,” students with minimal experience who have intriguing potential. “What I enjoy and love most about it is finding a dancer, maybe more of a beginner or has some talent that hasn’t started learning ballet or really diving in and training at that higher level, starting with them, seeing that transformation, and where they go,” she said.
“[I love] getting to be part of that transformation and bringing them what I’ve learned about ballet and dance in general. Getting to show them what they can do, what their bodies can do, what experiences they can have, and what dance can open up for them in their lives [is amazing]. I love to coach advanced dancers as well; it’s just that I [prefer] the kids that don’t know what they can do. Then you get to show them, that is exciting.”
Not only does Ms. Cat have an impressive resume in the dance world, but her years of teaching experience have also helped tailor her approach to each student. Isabella Keesee, 15, is a current pupil who will join the Royal Ballet School in London in September. She credits Lewellen’s instruction for helping her land such a great gig.
“She’s super supportive. She’s always been kind and gentle, especially since I’ve had many injuries,” Keesee said. “I got injured last year, and she helped me come back. I ended up coming back stronger than before. She never pushed me too hard but knew my limits to where I needed to be pushed to improve. She’s such a great teacher. Every time I need a correction, she’s always there to make sure I don’t feel too upset and not overwhelmed. I get frustrated with myself and she helps me work on improving rather than being frustrated.”
Keesee, who started dancing at age three and began ballet at eight, has contended with knee injuries the past few years which kept her from dancing. However, even when she doubted her ability to return and contemplated quitting, Ms. Cat was always there to offer encouragement. “That whole time, she would send me messages. When I got injured this past season, she would send me a bunch of messages telling me not to be discouraged and to keep working, supporting any decision I wanted to make,” Kessee said.
Keesee is from Las Vegas, and since her family did not accompany her to Frisco, she’s lived with host families while training at ECC for nearly the past three years. Earlier this year, her host family moved, leaving Isabella without a place to stay for the summer. Up stepped Lewellen, who offered to let her stay at her house with her husband, Les, and their children until she headed home to Vegas and later to London.
“I took her to Switzerland to this big international competition, the Prix De Lausanne. While we didn’t win, she was like the second youngest there, she did get multiple scholarship offers for every school in Europe she could dream of,” Lewellen said. “She chose Royal Ballet in London. It’s a pretty motivating and inspiring story because it was a good three years of straight PT [physical therapy] with no hope and nothing in sight by herself. She was full on this year and had the best year of her life. She’s doing amazing. I’ve been happy to be there for her.”
A second success story for Ms. Cat is another local 15-year-old, Angelina Shi, who calls herself a “late bloomer” as she didn’t take up ballet until age 11. “I really love ballet because it’s really good to challenge your artistic abilities, but also technical abilities through motions of the body,” Shi said. “It helps build confidence and me be a better person because I always need to keep improving and challenging myself to become a better dancer.”
Shi remembers attending a summer workshop at ECC, after which Lewellen invited her to train there full-time. However, her mother, Jessica, and father, Andrew Tan, turned Ms. Cat down because Angelina was enjoying attending public school in Frisco at the time and felt the timing wasn’t right.
However, since Lewellen saw great potential in Shi, she didn’t easily give up and extended a second invite for her to join ECC after the 2022 season. This time, she accepted. “Two months after that, I attended my first YAGP (Youth America Grand Prix), an international youth ballet and contemporary dance competition in Dallas.
It was my first time attending a ballet competition. Dallas is super competitive,” Shi said. “I was shocked to place top 12 in the junior division because it was my first year. After the awards, my mom got goosebumps and was shocked. After that, we thought maybe Ms. Cat saw something special in me and we never realized it.”
Lewellen vividly recalls the immense potential she saw in Shi that first summer. “She was quite a beginner, didn’t really know what she was doing,” she said. “But see, she had beautiful hyper-extended legs. She focused so well and had this beautiful upper body. I liked her work ethic.”
Shi has now trained at ECC for over two years and Ms. Cat speaks like a proud parent when discussing the incredible growth she’s seen from this affable teen. “She’s stunning. She’s the hardest worker,” Lewellen said. “She is blossoming. She won the Youth Grand Prix award this year. She made the final round at the internationals in New York [at Lincoln Center]. She’s trained for some of the really big internationals this year with hopes of moving abroad when she’s 16. She’s amazing. The family’s amazing. They’re such big supporters of her and of ECC. Anything we say, they do and support. She’s a lovely individual. I couldn’t ask for more. She’s a dream, a great kid.”
And it’s clear that Lewellen’s approach in teaching Shi has strongly resonated with her young student, especially in helping build her confidence and overcome stage fright. “Ms. Cat is very encouraging. I love her teaching and taking her class,” Shi said. “Not only does she teach me to become a better dancer, but also to become a better person. She always tells us to be kind and humble.”
“Even at competitions, she texts us, make sure to say thank you to everyone you’ve talked to. Every time [before competing] we hold hands in prayer. It always makes me feel good. She always tells us to be good people, which is really awesome. Overcoming my stage fright and becoming more confident, we talk about it all the time. She’s helped me through a lot of that.”
Shi aspires to one day become a professional dancer with one of her “dream companies,” a gig she knows would not have been attainable without the great instruction she’s received from Lewellen. “That [becoming a professional dancer] would be one of the most amazing things ever. Principal dancer, principal roles, they’re so amazing,” Shi said. “I love watching people do that and seeing how much they’ve grown. I really hope I can do that too one day.”
When Catherine Livengood Lewellen started Elite Classical Coaching in Frisco in 2017, she did so looking to pass along the vast knowledge she’d learned in ballet to the next generation of dancers while finding “diamonds in the rough,” inexperienced dancers with great potential which she could polish and develop into talented performers.
Ms. Cat has done exactly that with two current 15-year-old students in Isabella Keesee, who is headed to Royal Ballet in London later this year, and Angelina Shi, who has already won numerous awards and has her eyes on set on a career as a professional dancer in the future. These two talented teens epitomize the sort of progression in a dancer which brings a huge smile to her face. “All that kind of stuff is pretty exciting,” Lewellen said.
Stephen Hunt is a longtime Frisco resident who has never once been called “twinkle toes”.
