Artistic Leadership & Faculty

Noelani Pantastico is from Oahu, Hawaii. She trained at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet and attended summer courses at Pacific Northwest Ballet School from 1994 to 1996. She joined Pacific Northwest Ballet as an apprentice in 1997. Noelani was promoted to corps de ballet in 1998, soloist in 2001, and principal in 2004. In 2008, she left PNB to join Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo as a soloist and was promoted to first soloist in 2009. In 2015, Noelani returned to PNB as a principal dancer. In addition to her PNB repertory, Noelani danced leading roles at Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo in Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Altro Canto, La Belle, Cendrillon, Choré, Faust, Men’s Dance for Women, Opus 40, Roméo et Juliette, Scheherazade, Le Songe, and Vers un Pays Sage; Marie Chouinard’s Body Remix; Alexander Eckman’s Rondo; Nicolo Fonte’s Quiet Bang; William Forsythe’s New Sleep; Emio Greco and Peter Scholten’s Le Corps du Ballet; Natalia Horeçna’s Tales Absurd, Fatalistic Visions Predominate; Johan Inger’s In Exact; Jiří Kylián’s Petite Mort; Pontus Lidberg’s Summer’s Winter Shadow; Matjash Mrozewski’s Pavillon d’Armide; and Jeroen Verbruggen’s Kill Bambi.

She originated roles in Maillot’s Casse-Noisette Compagnie and Lac. Noelani was featured in the BBC’s 1999 film version of PNB’s production of Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, filmed at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London. In 2004, she performed the second movement of Balanchine’s Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet as a guest artist for New York City Ballet’s Balanchine Centennial. In 2017, Ms. Pantastico choreographed PICNIC for Sculptured Dance, a collaboration between Pacific Northwest Ballet and Seattle Art Museum presented at Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park. In 2019, Noelani co-founded Seattle Dance Collective with PNB principal dancer James Yoichi Moore.

Frederick Rocas was born in Manila, Philippines and received his ballet training with Ballet Manila. He then became a member of the Philippine National Gymnastics Team and represented the country in various competitions abroad. After his gymnastics career, he then continued his ballet training, accepting a scholarship offered by Academy One Music and Dance Center. He joined with the Alabama Ballet as a company member in 2010 and started performing principal roles with the company in 2012.

During his time with the Alabama Ballet, Frederick has performed Basilio in Don Quixote, Cavalier in George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®, Romeo and Mercutio in Van Fleteren’s Romeo and Juliet, The Prince in Van Fleteren’s Cinderella, Blue Boy in Ashton’s Les Patineurs, Prince Siegfried in Van Fleteren’s Swan Lake, James in Bournonville’s La sylphide, Franze in Van Fleteren’s Coppelia, Jiri Kylian’s Sechs Tänze, Agnes DeMille’s The Other and Rodeo and Twyla Tharp’s In The Upper Room. He has also been seen in Anthony Tudor’s Lilac Garden, George Balanchine’s Allegro Brillante, Western Symphony and Tarantella, Garret Smith’s Imitations, Dennis Nahat’s Blue Suede Shoes and Christopher Bruce’s Rooster!

Frederick also choreographed “Kali” for Alabama Ballet, a martial arts piece about his country’s national sport and most recently, “In the Stars”, a tribute for his late father.

As a faculty member, Frederick has been with the Alabama Ballet school since 2014. He has had the opportunity to teach and share his knowledge of dance in numerous places, Summer Intensives in his hometown Manila, Philippines, Damansara Performing Arts Center in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Alabama Ballet in Birmingham, AL, Alabama Dance Theater in Montgomery, AL and most recently Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet in Carlisle, PA. 

Rose Taylor holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from The University of Oklahoma with an emphasis in early childhood education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from The University of Missouri-Kansas City.  As CPYB's Director of the Children’s and Primary Divisions & Director of Curriculum, Ms. Taylor takes great pride and joy in teaching and guiding CPYB’s youngest dancers. She enjoys creating programs for early childhood and foundational level students and assisting young dancers with their earliest rehearsal and performance experiences.

Ms. Taylor received her early ballet training at Somerset Ballet Centre and the Kansas City Ballet School in addition to summer study at the School of American Ballet, Joffrey Ballet School and Houston Ballet Academy. Ms. Taylor danced with Kansas City Ballet before continuing her training at Houston Ballet Academy. In addition to Kansas City Ballet, she also performed with Houston Ballet, Oklahoma Festival Ballet and appeared regularly as a guest artist. She became an instructor for Houston Ballet’s Lower School and Education & Community Engagement program. She then returned to her hometown to assume the role as Principal of the Lower School at Kansas City Ballet School before completing her education then relocating to Carlisle to join the CPYB family and have the incredible experience of learning first-hand from Marcia Dale Weary.

Melinda Howe has served on the faculty of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet for 40 years; it’s also where she began her ballet training under the direction of Marcia Dale Weary.  She received her BFA from the North Carolina School of the Arts and then returned to Carlisle to work with Ms. Weary. 

With Marcia’s encouragement, Melinda taught all levels of students and began to guest teach and to choreograph. Her ballet, Andante, won the prestigious RDA Monticello Award for Choreography, and A Breath of Hayden was danced by Project Ballet at the National RDA festival in Montreal.

As a current teacher and faculty member at CPYB, Melinda creates ballets for Founder’s Series and assists with the 5-Week Summer Ballet Program and Teacher’s Workshop.

Ariana Czernobil is from Chicago, Illinois. She trained at the Ruth Page School of Dance and graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts high school program. She joined the Alabama Ballet in 2011 as an apprentice and was promoted to a company member in 2013. With the Alabama Ballet, she performed soloist and principal roles in ballets such as Romeo and Juliet, Giselle, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Coppélia, La Fille Mal Gardée, La Sylphide, Paquita, Études, Twyla Tharp's In the Upper Room, and George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Allegro Brilliante, Western Symphony, and Serenade. She has also performed in Sir Fredrick Ashton's Cinderella with the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago as a guest artist.

While dancing with the Alabama Ballet, she graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BS in Kinesiology, a concentration in Exercise Science, and a minor in Psychology. She has received teacher training in the CPYB syllabus, has taught for the 5 Week Summer Ballet Program in 2021 and 2022, and was a guest teacher at CPYB during the 2022-2023 school year.

Frances Perez-Ball trained at Julian E. Blanco School of Performing Arts in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Hartford Ballet School, Eglevsky Ballet, and Point Park College. Frances began her career with Ballet Teatro Municipal de San Juan. As a principal dancer with Ballet Municipal, she toured the United States and Latin America performing various roles in full- length ballets such as Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Swanhilda in Coppelia, and Kitri in Don Quixote.

Frances joined Boston Ballet in 1995. Her performances with Boston Ballet included featured roles in The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Cinderella, Giselle, Onegin, Abdallah, Anna-Marie Holmes' staging of La Bayadère, Laszlo Berdo's Below Down Under, Christopher Wheeldon's Corybantic Ecstasies and The Four Seasons, Balanchine's Serenade, Theme and Variations, Ballo de la Regina, Symphony in C, Movements Pro Gesualto, and The Four Temperaments, Daniel Pelzig's 1998 World Premiere set to music by George Gershwin, Nine Lives: Songs of Lyle Lovett, and Bachianas, Nacho Duato's Without Words and Jardi Tancat, Lila York’s Ode to Joy and Celts, William Forsyth’s In the Middle Somewhat Elevated, Paul Taylor's Company B, Stanton Welch’s Madame Butterfly, as well as Ben Stevenson's Dracula and Cleopatra.

In 2003 Frances was invited to join Houston Ballet under the direction of Stanton Welch. There she performed works by Mr. Welch including Divergence and In the Garden of Myrth, Serge Lafar’s Suite en Blanc, Trey MacIntyre’s Touched, and Balanchine’s La Valse among others.

Mrs. Perez-Ball has been on the teaching staff of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Boston Ballet School, the upper-level school of Houston Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School, The Hope Stone, the Payne Academy, Kansas City Ballet, The Vancouver Ballet Society and the Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive.

In 1999 Frances was the recipient of the Capezio Copa International Award for her outstanding work in ballet.

Following his 20-year stage career at Boston Ballet and Houston Ballet, Mr. Ball joined Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s faculty in 2015. 

Simon performed professionally as a principal dancer with both Boston Ballet (1995 - 2003) and Houston Ballet (2003 - 2015). Mr. Ball has performed leading roles in such full length ballets as; Swan Lake, Don Quixote, Le Corsaire, Onegin, Taming of the Shrew, The Nutcracker, The Merry Widow, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, La Fille Mal Gardee, and in diverse repertoire by world renowned choreographers including: Bruce Wells, Rudi van Dantzig, Sir Frederick Ashton, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, John Cranko, Paul Taylor, William Forsythe, Anthony Tudor, Nacho Duato, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris, Christopher Wheeldon, Ben Stevenson, Ronald Hynd, Jerome Robbins, George Balanchine, Stanton Welch, James Kudelka, and Jiří Kylián. 

Simon Ball has also received a number of prestigious awards including the gold medal at the First International Ballet Competition in memory of Rudolf Nureyev (1994) in Budapest, Hungary; and the gold medal at the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi (1994). 

Mr. Ball has also been on the teaching faculty of Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, Boston Ballet School, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre School, Kansas City Ballet, Hope Stone Dance, Rice University’s Opera studies program, Vail Valley Dance Intensive, and the Saratoga Summer Dance Intensive.

Alan Hineline brings a broad range of international artistic leadership, teaching and choreography credentials to his role as Artistic Advisor and Resident Choreographer at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. Working with CPYB since 1995, Hineline has served as the organization’s resident choreographer and chief executive officer.

Hineline’s choreography is in the repertories of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, Ballet de Monterrey, Ballet Philippines, Pennsylvania Ballet, ProDanza Cuba, Atlanta Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, Juilliard Dance Ensemble, and Ballet Academy East, among many schools, colleges, universities and professional companies. As a teacher, Hineline has instructed every level of dancer, from beginner through professional. He is part of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet’s faculty and has been a guest faculty member for, among others, Ballet Academy East and The Juilliard School.

Darla Hoover was trained at the renowned Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet under the direction of Marcia Dale Weary and completed her studies on a full scholarship at the School of American Ballet. In 1980, after choreographing a solo for her in the New York City Opera production of Bourgeois Gentilhomme, George Balanchine invited Ms. Hoover to become a member of his New York City Ballet.  She danced with the company until her retirement in 1991.

Ms. Hoover now focuses her attentions on teaching and staging ballets, including positions as the Artistic Director of Ballet Academy East’s Pre-Professional Division in New York City and as the Artistic Director of Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, where she also directs a nationally recognized Teachers Workshop that instructs fellow dance educators on the Teaching Syllabus and methodologies developed by Marcia Dale Weary. Ms. Hoover guest teaches all over the world, and she has been invited to share her successful techniques at distinguished companies such as New York City Ballet, Boston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Miami City Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, New National Theatre Tokyo, Royal Danish Ballet, and the Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Working as a répétiteur, Ms. Hoover stages works for the George Balanchine Trust on professional ballet companies all over the world. 

Nicholas Ade is from Los Angeles, Ca. He trained at San Francisco Ballet School and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. He danced with the Pacific Northwest Ballet (PNB) from 1996-2006 under Francia Russell, Kent Stowell and Peter Boal. Ade joined Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet as school principal in 2012, prior to serving as principal of the Pacific Northwest Ballet School’s Francia Russell Center, PNB’s Eastside School, under Artistic Director Peter Boal from 2006 through 2012. In November 2014, Ade was appointed chief executive officer of CPYB.