Lanie Jackson, from Dallas, Texas, began her dance training at the Dallas Ballet Center under the direction of Judy and Brent Klopfenstein. She was a member of the Dallas Ballet Company, where she had the chance to explore her artistic voice in performance and in creative process. She danced principal roles in many classical ballets, such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Le Corsaire, and The Nutcracker, as well as having leading roles and being showcased in new works by choreographers such as Jason Fowler and Silas Farley. She was given many high-caliber performance opportunities both locally and internationally, travelling with DBCo in 2015 to Austria for the Stars of Tomorrow: Young! Tanzsommer festival tour and to Montréal, Quebec, Canada for the Regional Dance America National Festival. Since graduating High School, Lanie has enjoyed returning to the Dallas Ballet Center to teach Ballet, Jazz, and Contemporary to its students as well as being a private instructor, Rehearsal Director and Répétiteur for the company.
Lanie received her BFA in Dance performance in 2021 from The Juilliard School, where she trained with prominent names in Graham, Horton, Limón, Gaga, and Cunningham in addition to honing her technical excellence in Ballet. She has loved stepping up to the challenges of modern and contemporary dance under the Artistic Directorship of Lawrence Rhodes, Taryn Kashock- Russel, and Alicia Graf Mack and Mario Alberto Zambrano. Lanie has learned much from working with choreographers such as John Heginbotham, Gentian Doda, Andrea Miller, and Matthew Neenan and she has had the pleasure of working on new creations with James Whiteside and Franscesca Harper, as well as participating in residencies with Ohad Naharin of Batsheva Dance Company. For her graduation performance, she worked with Francesca Harper and William Forsythe on an excerpt of his masterpiece, In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, which she also performed as a finalist in the World Ballet Competition in June 2021.
Lanie is thrilled to be in her second season with Ballet Virginia.