Nicole Comella was born and raised in Southern California and began her dance training at the age of 4. Since then, her life has been centered around dance, especially classical and contemporary ballet. She received her training mainly from California Ballet School (Maxine Mahon, Director), New West Ballet (Eugenia Keefer, Director) and United States International University (San Diego, CA) where she received a BFA in Dance under the Direction of Steven and Elizabeth Wistrich. Upon college graduation, Ms. Comella performed ballet as a freelance artist throughout California, Mexico and London and performed extensively in musical theatre productions with San Diego Civic Light Opera. In 1994, she relocated to Santa Barbara, becoming a founding member of State Street Ballet where she danced principal roles for six years as well as teaching in the school. With State Street Ballet, she toured in California, Utah, and Taiwan. Ms. Comella began teaching dance at the age of 17 under the tutelage of Eugenia Keefer and Suzanne Rines at New West Ballet in San Marcos, California. Since 2001, Ms. Comella has been the Assistant School Director of Gustafson Dance, Summer Mini Camp Director and Co-Director of State Street Ballet Young Dancers. She is an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training in Primary through Level 5 of the ABT® National training Curriculum. In addition, she has served as adjunct faculty at Westmont College and is a certified Pilates instructor. She has been sharing her love of dance with students for 35 years.