International Ballet School was founded in 1997 by Mark Carlson, who trained at the School of Imperial Russian Ballet under Paul Petroff and Nana Gollner and spent two decades on European stages as a soloist and principal dancer. In 2000 he was joined by Sandra Kerr-Carlson — former soloist with Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Colorado Ballet — who co-directs the school and designs and stages every production. From a single studio in Centennial, the school has become one of the most decorated ballet programs in the country: 8 times YAGP Outstanding School, 14 years of YAGP Outstanding Teacher awards, 6 Grand Prix winners, 42 first-place finishes, and finalists at the Prix de Lausanne, Jackson IBC, and the Beijing International Ballet Competition. POINTE Magazine has noted that our students go on to dance all over the world. Every year the school's performing company, the International Youth Ballet, stages two full professional productions — The Nutcracker and a rotating spring ballet — at the Gates Concert Hall, Newman Center for the Arts, with professional sets, hand-made costumes, and hired professional partners. Students as young as four audition, rehearse, and perform on a real stage in front of a real audience. Alumni have earned contracts with American Ballet Theatre, The Joffrey Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Dutch National Ballet, Houston Ballet, and more than 27 professional companies. But most students who walk through our door are not chasing a contract — they come to learn what every dancer here learns: with hard work, confidence, and a good work ethic, anything is possible in life.