Priya Starbuck, Instructor
Years of Teaching Experience: 10
Years of Dance Experience: 23
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. ” Martha Graham
“I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same… Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.” Martha Graham
Priya is a native San Franciscan, trained at the Marin Ballet. A finalist at the Jackson International Ballet Competition, in 1994 she apprenticed with the San Francisco Ballet joining the company as a member of the Corps de Ballet in 1995. She was promoted to Soloist in 2002.
During her ten years of dancing with the San Francisco Ballet Company, some of her favorite roles included; Snow Queen in The Nutcracker, Peasant Pas de Trois/Sygnets/Neopolitan in Swan Lake, Nacho Duato’s Without Words and Princess in Yuri Possokov’s Medea. Priya has choreographed since she was a student and has taught regularly since 2001.
Some of her favorite memories of dancing include performing Serenade in an outdoor theater in Italy as it began to rain and watching the bats fly overhead while dancing a principal role at Erodion, an ancient Greek theatre in Athens.
A favorite memory of teaching at Tiffany’s Dance Academy was watching a student with a physical disability learn how to accomplish a new dance move with so much joy and excitement. “It was a very humbling, inspiring and rewarding moment in my teaching career.”
