Ms. McCreanor is Founder and past Artistic Director of Colorado West Ballet and Performing Arts Center. Trained in Pittsburgh with Charlotte Mady, she studied with Barbara Weissberger of the Pennsylvania Ballet and Ballet Master, George Zoritch. She was awarded a full scholarship to the North Carolina School of the Arts at the age of 14 and went on to study dance and theatre arts at Stephens College, the University of Missouri and at Columbia College on full scholarship for artistic merit and academic achievement. She also studied with masters Luigi and Gus Giordano in Jazz technique, Finus Jhung and David Howard in Classical Ballet and Michael Kravitz in Modern Dance, among others.

She has performed with contemporary and classical ballet companies across the country in roles including “The Nutcracker”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Don Quixote”, “Swan Lake”, “Rodeo”, “Napoli”, and “Obsessions”, (a ballet created especially for her). She has taught Classical Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Creative Dance, Floor Barre, and Gymnastics in New Jersey, Oregon, Missouri, Arizona and throughout Colorado and northern California. She recently traveled to southern France where she was a Guest Instructor and Choreographer in a cultural exchange project with over 30 dancers from schools north of Paris and in Valence d’Agen in southwest France. Nine dancers from the Mendocino Ballet attended the workshop where Ms. McCreanor taught Classical Ballet, Pointe, Floor Barre and Broadway Dance and choreographed for a community performance. Dancers from France traveled to Ukiah in the summer of 2005 where they studied with Ms. McCreanor and Ms. Helene Darroman of AVICA Danse in France.

In addition to teaching, Trudy choreographed and directed several children’s ballets and original productions, restaged many classics from “Les Sylphides” and “Swan Lake” to “Pas de Quatre”, "Cinderella" and "Napoli", coordinated local children in “The Nutcracker” with the Colorado Ballet, Tulsa Ballet Theatre, David Taylor Dance Theatre, the Eugene Ballet and the Aspen Ballet. She has provided choreography for special children’s productions with the Grand Junction Symphony Orchestra including “Peter and the Wolf”, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, “Cinderella”, “La Boutique Fantasque”, “Alice in Wonderland”, and many more.

She has organized Outreach Programs for Arts in Education Programs and taught movement workshops and dance history throughout the community and school districts of western Colorado and northern California. She also taught Dance Movement and Dance History Workshops at Woodlands Charter School and Tree of Life Charter School in Ukiah and Classical Ballet and Performance classes at Mendocino College. She was a guest teacher and taught Arts Management, Ballet, and Dance History at Mesa State College in Colorado. She has produced and choreographed musical theatre productions for the schools and community theatre in western Colorado and northern California. She has also received grants to teach dance arts and perform in the schools at Blosser Lane Elementary School in Willits and Frank Zeek Elementary School in Ukiah. Ms. McCreanor is the President of the Board of Directors for the Arts Council of Mendocino County where she actively works on writing grants to provide funding to bring arts of all kinds back into the schools throughout the county.

Ms. McCreanor was hired in July 2001 to direct the Mendocino Ballet Company and create the Mendocino Ballet School where she has implemented a comprehensive, professional Classical Ballet training program for the serious dancer and a multi-discipline recreational dance program including ballet, tap, jazz, modern dance, flamenco, character dance, creative dance, and more for students of all ages from 3-93.

Susan Wilcox re-located to Ukiah from Prescott, AZ where she operated her own school of dance, Yavapai Dance Arts, and taught Classical Ballet, Pointe, Character, Creative Movement, a Pilates inspired Stretch Class, and Flamenco Dance. A former professional dancer, she performed classical and contemporary roles in Edinburgh, Scotland with the Scottish-American Ballet, the Long Beach Ballet, and Eugene Ballet. She has performed roles from "Romeo & Juliet", "The Nutcracker", as the Summer Fairy in "Cinderella, as one of the seven fairies from "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and in a collaborative effort with Fernando Bujones and the Eugene Ballet in "Giselle". Susan has also taught at Ballet Arts, the school for the Long Beach Ballet, the school for the Eugene Ballet and for Ballet Companies and schools throughout California, Oregon and Prescott, Arizona. Her Flamenco Background includes study with Lea Vivante and Julia Chacon in Arizona and La Tania in Mendocino. She teaches Classical Ballet, Pointe, and Flamenco for the Mendocino Ballet.

Lynlee Towne was born and raised in Ukiah. She trained under Mary Knight for several years at the Mendocino Ballet Company, where her love for dance was nurtured and encouraged. At the Mendocino Ballet, she was encouraged to explore technique in a positive and inspirational way, while she received the fundamental technique that is needed to go on to a professional career. Approaching her sophomore year, Lynlee was encouraged to accept a scholarship offered by BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio where she would train with the professional company and work with a pre-professional company. She was next offered a position at Fort Wayne Ballet to work under one of her favorite and most inspiring mentors Robert Kelley. Lynlee received a scholarship to the Choreography Conference where she met her soon to be Director and friend, Ron Cunningham of Sacramento Ballet where she danced for seven years in a plethora of roles. Some of her favorites are Fortuna in Carmina Burana, Concerto Borroco by George Balanchine, Lady Capulet in Ron Cunningham's Romeo and Juliet, and Pas de trois in Petipa's Sleeping Beauty. Lynlee also danced with several other companies such as: Ballet Austin, Oakland Ballet, Mark Foeringer Dance Project, Liss Fain Dance, Company C, and im' ij re, directed by Amy Seiwert. As one of the founding members of im' ij re, Lynlee had the opportunity to work with Seiwert for over ten years where the company was the first place recipient of Festival Des Arts Choreography Competition in Montreal, Canada.

Lynlee is currently working towards a degree in Physical Therapy while teaching full time. She spent three years teaching the upper divisions at San Francisco School of the Arts and two years teaching at Marin Ballet. Lynlee has taught open division classes for the San Francisco Dance Center and Marin Ballet, as well as frequent Ballet Mistress for Liss Fain Dance and im' ij re. She will teach Classical Ballet, Pointe and Pilates for Mendocino Ballet.

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