 Phyllis Papa, the founding director of the Atlantic City Ballet, has been a professional dancer since the age of fifteen. She began her training at the Royal Ballet Academy under the direction of her mother Mary Papa. At the age of thirteen Miss Papa became a charter member of the Princeton Regional Ballet Company. As their ballerina she danced principle roles including Nutcracker, Les Sylphide, Nelle Fisher’s Mozart, and Pas de Quatre. This relationship continued throughout her career with numerous return performances as a guest artist . Her legacy carries on today through her students, who are now members of the American Repertory Ballet.
Her career as an international ballet star began when she became a member and principal dancer of the Harkness Youth Ballet. During her two years at Harkness, Miss Papa was a guest performer with the Myra Kinch Modern Dance company at Jacob’s Pillow and with the Andre Eglevsky Ballet Company.
In 1967 American Ballet Theatre invited Miss Papa to join their company. She toured extensively throughout the United States. In addition to corps work in American Ballet Theatre, Miss Papa was given the opportunity to do solo roles in Pillar of Fire, Giselle, Coppelia, Billy the Kid, and others. Harkness Ballet asked her to be a guest artist with them during her membership with American Ballet Theatre to dance at the White House for President Johnson during an Official Dinner, dancing a ballet choreographed especially for her by Donald Saddler.
Besides dancing for the president of the United States and the Shah of Iran, Miss Papa has danced many Royal Command Performances in Europe. One of her favorite fans was the late King Frederick IX of Denmark. In the 70’s, Miss Papa was invited to audition for the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen, Denmark, becoming the first American ever accepted into the company. She was also the only foreigner ever to be offered a life long contract. Two months after joining the company Miss Papa was chosen to dance the lead role in Flemming Flindt’s new ballet Triumph of Death, based on the Eugene Ionesco play, for Danish television. It was entered into the Italian Film Festival and was sold to Eurovision and later premiered on the stage. She received rave reviews for her work in this ballet. Miss Papa toured Europe with the Royal Danish Ballet dancing solo and principal parts in La Sylphide, Etudes, Swan Lake, The Lady and the Fool, and Triumph of Death.
After her work in Europe, Miss Papa continued her career in this country by becoming principal ballerina with Stars of the American Ballet in New York City. Her partners include Peter Martins, Russell Chambers, Fernandez Bujones and Larry Rhodes. While touring with Stars, Miss Papa taught masters classes in many major cities in the United States, and assumed significant management responsibilities within the company. Her management prowess led to her becoming Artistic Director of Stars of American Ballet and principle ballerina of the company.
Miss Papa taught in the Philadelphia area for over twelve years. She was a member of the faculty of the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Development, where Miss Papa created and taught a program for the development of neurological brain growth to both well and brain injured students. Her students came from many countries including Japan, Poland, Italy and South America.
In June 1998, Miss Papa received the 1998 Brazilian Gold Medal of Honor. Diplomats from Brazil, England, Italy, China, Japan and the United States awarded her with this Gold Medal. Miss Papa is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who of American Women, Who’s Who of the World, The Social Directory, and the National Biographic Society. The New Jersey State Council on the Arts has awarded her two fellowship grants for choreography. The first award was for her ballet Concerto Vivaldi, the second she received in 1982 for her work Clear Water. These ballets are just two among some twenty-five works she has choreographed that appear in the repertoire of the Atlantic City Ballet. Miss Papa has been a member of the faculty of Dancers’ School in New York City, which was supported by Joanne Woodward.
In 1999, Miss Papa founded the ACBT Performing Arts Academy, the official school of The Atlantic City Ballet. The Academy houses the professional company, the International Performing Arts Camp and the ACBT Academic program. Students travel from throughout the United States and countries such as Japan, Thailand, and others parts of Asia, Europe, and South America to study at ACBT.
Miss Papa is founded and presently directs the Atlantic City Ballet, formerly known as the Atlantic Contemporary Ballet Theatre. She has choreographed over thirty ballets for the company including the full Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. The ACB has performed Miss Papa’s Nutcracker Ballet to sold out houses for the past twenty years. Her latest works are seen in Vision From Around the World and Visions II. For the past three years Miss Papa has directed and choreographed three Shakespearean plays done as a multicultural media. She incorporates original music with live musicians, voice and dance within the performance of the play. Her idea is to bring all the arts together in one performance. This has been a huge success especially among children. The plays she has created include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest and Hamlet.
Miss Papa directs both the dance and academic training at the Academy. This is a direct result of her experience with her own four daughters. Home-schooled and in college at the ages of 13, her three oldest daughters not only maintained Dean’s list and 4.0 GPA’s but were the youngest students to graduate from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey with BA’s at 17 and 16 years old. The same curriculum she implemented in teaching her daughters is now in use at the Academy and her students have enjoyed great success as well. Many have gone on to being accepted into particularly revered and prestigious schools.
Miss Papa is also on the faculty of the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and can issue high school students up to 12 college credits in Ballet at the Academy.
Miss Papa has been justly acclaimed “One of the finest dancers and teachers on the American scene today.”
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Swan Lake
Phyllis Papa with Peter Martins |
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