Johansen Olympia Dance Center is the home of Ballet Northwest, which produces
performances at the prestigious Washington Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Olympia. Ballet Northwest holds auditions every September for the coming season. Children who are at least age 8 by August 31 may audition for The Nutcracker only. To audition for the company, dancers must be 12 years old by August 31 and enrolled in a minimum of two intermediate ballet classes each week. Company dancers participate in the annual winter production of The Nutcracker, as well as the spring production over Mother’s Day weekend in May. Auditions for the 2017 production of The Nutcracker (as well as Company auditions) will take place in late September. For more information, visit http://balletnorthwest.org.

Ballet Northwest’s spring productions have included Swan lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote,, and Coppelia. The productions feature professional sets and costumes, as well as choreography by Johansen Olympia Dance Center Directors Ken and Josie Johnson (also Co-Artistic Directors of Ballet Northwest.)

Johansen Olympia Dance Center students also perform in annual recitals in early June at the Washington Center. This state-of-the-art professional theater is an ideal venue for the year-end performance showcasing the dancers’ hard work. Advanced students from the school have also participated in community festivals such as Super Saturday at The Evergreen State College and Olympia’s Arts Walk, as well as regional dance festivals such as the Olympia Dance Festival, Dance Festival Northwest at Centralia College, and Metro Dance Festival in Tacoma.