Denver Academy of Ballet

Rob Kuykendall

Rob began dancing at age 12 in Evansville, IN and soon moved to Birmingham, AL to train with Thor Sutowki and Dame Sonia Arova at The Alabama School of Fine Arts. He has worked professionally with Alabama Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Orlando Ballet and most recently with Boulder Ballet. Rob has a diverse training and teaching background in Vaganova, Bournonville, Paris Opera and Cuban methods, having learned from such greats as Fernando Bujones and Wes Chapman. In 2009, Rob won the Youth America Grand Prix “Most Outstanding Teacher Award”. Many of the students he has taught and coached have won top awards at YAGP and The Denver Ballet Guild’s Young Dancers Competition. They have also received scholarships to some of America’s top schools; including Kirov Academy in Washington DC, Pacific Northwest Ballet and School of American Ballet. Many have also gone on to professional careers at some of America’s premiere companies; including American Ballet Theater, San Francisco Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet, American Repertory Ballet and Miami City Ballet as well as prestigious international companies such as The Royal Ballet and Staatstheater Nurnberg in Germany.

Chandra Kuykendall

Chandra Kuykendall is from Parker, Colorado and trained at the Academy of Colorado Ballet from 1988 until graduating in 1997. In 1996, she won the Denver Ballet Guild Competition and received the prestigious Florence Rustin Award. She also attended summer programs at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Vail (under full scholarship), Kirov Academy of Ballet, San Francisco Ballet Academy and School of American Ballet. After graduating from the Academy in 1997, Ms. Kuykendall joined Colorado Ballet. She spent the 1998-1999 season with Leipzig Ballet in Leipzig, Germany under the direction of the brilliant choreographer Uwe Scholz. She returned to Colorado Ballet in the fall of 1999. With Colorado Ballet, Ms. Kuykendall has danced numerous principal roles including Princess Aurora and Lilac Fairy in The Sleeping Beauty, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Giselle and Myrta in Giselle, Medora in Le Corsaire, Sugar Plum Fairy and Clara in The Nutcracker, Cinderella in Cinderella, Dryad Queen in Don Quixote, Lucy in Dracula, Titania and Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the principal role in Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1, the 2nd Violin in Concerto Barocco, the Crossover Girl in Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room, the Mother in Glen Tetley’s The Rite of Spring, the Brown Girl in Celts, the Kick Girl in George Balanchine’s Rubies and principal role in Theme and Variations. Her favorite of these roles was the tragic Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. She has also been featured in Antony Tudor’s Leaves Are Fading, Stanton Welch’s Of Blessed Memory, Twyla Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs, S. Webre’s Where the Wild Things Are, Edwaard Liang’s Feast of the Gods, Jodie Gates’ Embellish, Emery LeCrone’s Archetypes, Val Caniparoli’s In Pieces, Jessica Lang’s From Foreign Lands and People and De Profundis, Mathew Neenan’s The Faraway, Amy Seiwert’s Traveling Alone and Things Left Unsaid, Carmina Burana, Great Galloping Gottschalk, Yes, Virginia, Another Piano Ballet and Martin Fredmann’s A Little Love as well as his Dreamspace shown on PBS. Ms. Kuykendall was featured in the August 2013 issue of 5280 Magazine highlighting seven of Colorado’s athletes. Chandra’s professional dancing career has brought forth many teaching opportunities as well.