Mackenna Pieper, a student at Willow Bend Academy’s Lewisville campus, has recently been featured in the Lewisville Leader newspaper. Local dancers recently competed for a chance to earn scholarships to professional ballet companies and to perform at David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York. Six dancers from LakeCities Ballet Theatre (LBT) performed in the 2015 Youth America Grand Prix Dallas competition. Mackenna took first place out of the approximately 100 soloists that competed in the senior division.

Traditional classrooms simply don’t have the flexibility to accommodate most pre-professional athletic training schedules, so most such students obtain their education through non-traditional schools like Willow Bend Academy. We are happy that we can play that part in supporting her achievements and aspirations.

Mackenna’s current goal is to earn a scholarship to the San Francisco Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, and her dream is to become a professional ballerina. She has an interest in contemporary dance but her heart is in classical ballet.

Realizing that dream requires rigorous training and competition in order to be recognized for her talent and interpretation. One such competition will be her weeklong event in New York, where she and many other talented young dancers will work daily for hours on their performances. The competition culminates in the finals closing night “Stars of Today Meet the Stars of Tomorrow” gala at the David H. Koch Theater in Lincoln Center, where Mackenna will be competing against people from all over the world.

Good luck in reaching your dream, Mackenna.  We are proud of you at Willow Bend Academy.