Faculty
Emily Zimmermann Gilstrap
Owner, Director
Emily Zimmermann Gilstrap began her ballet training in the San Francisco Bay Area at Professional Ballet School with Dutch National and San Francisco Ballet artists Carmela Zegarelli Peter and Zoltan Peter. She spent summers training with Richard Gibson and Zory Karah at Academy of Ballet as well as Joffrey Ballet's summer intensive.
Emily performed with Peninsula Ballet Theatre and directed a dance program at Palo Alto Family YMCA. She received a B.A. in Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz while she also performed as a featured dancer and assistant choreographer with Cabrillo Stage Musical Theatre, and taught ballet at Western Ballet in Mountain View.
Emily obtained a Masters of Science degree at the University of Sheffield, UK., which afforded her an advanced knowledge of human anatomy and physiology. After moving to the midwest with her family, Emily became Ballet Mistress and Director of Development with Missouri Contemporary Ballet Company and School. Here, she developed programming including a nutrition and injury prevention workshop, and choreographed and co-choreographed full length pre-professional ballet and musical theatre productions.
In 2017, Emily moved to Massachusetts with her family. Since her arrival she has worked in special education at Boston Public Schools as well as Valley Collaborative Elementary in Tyngsborough. Following a year teaching at Brookline Ballet School, she settled in Westford and has continued sharing her passion for ballet with the local community ever since. In March of 2021, Emily pursued her dream and founded Dream Ballet School.
Emily Zimmermann Gilstrap is an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Pre-Primary through Level 3 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum.
Erica Wolf
Faculty - Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Improv
Originally from Tampa, Florida, Erica Wolf began dancing at Bay City Ballet where she performed in works such as “The Nutcracker”, “A Midsummer Night's Dream,” and “Valse Fantasie” by George Balanchine, and other classical works by Marius Petipa. After moving to Saugerties, NY, she began her formal dance training at Saugerties Ballet Center under the direction of Scarlett Fiero. She joined Ulster Ballet Company and performed in the annual “Festival of Dance” from 2013-2016. She has attended numerous summer intensives throughout her pre-professional training including the Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive, Next Generation Ballet, Boston Ballet, The Rock School for Dance Education, New York State Summer School of
the Arts, and Kaatsbaan Extreme Ballet. She chose to further her studies after graduating high school and chose to attend The Hartt School in Hartford, CT. Throughout her studies at Hartt, she has performed/ learned works by Jose Limon, Gabrielle Lamb, George Balanchine, Claudia Schreier, Debra Collins Ryder, and various classical works by Marius Petipa. In December of 2018, she was a guest artist in Ballet Hartford’s performance of Handel’s “Messiah”. In the summer of 2019, she attended the Henny Jurriëns Studio Summer Intensive in Amsterdam, Netherlands for two weeks, where she took workshop classes including William Forsythe’s Improvisation Techniques by Amy Raymond, Counterpoint Technique by Jenia Kasatkina, and Partnering taught by Luke Jessop. Erica graduated with a BFA in Ballet Pedagogy from The University of Hartford, The Hartt School in the spring of 2020.
