Lineage Performing Arts Education Programs

Lineage Performing Arts Education Programs offers classes in dance, music, acting, Musical Theatre, Modern Dance, and theatre, as well as interdisciplinary performances. The program includes specific options such as the Kids Broadway Program and a summer intensive and dance concert for the John Muir Mystics Dance Team. Lineage also produces multidisciplinary works that combine dance, music, and storytelling to illuminate a topic, and presents 7–8 productions each year for an audience of over 2,000 people.

• Ages: 5–18 years old

Lineage’s mission is to serve as a hub for artistic connection and creative expression, offering diverse opportunities in dance, music, theater, and the performing arts. The organization teaches classes in its facility to all ages in Musical Theatre, Modern Dance, and Acting, serving over 100 students each year, and served more than 3,200 individuals through arts education programs in 2024. A Lineage patron described the organization as “always cutting edge, when it comes to ‘critical issues’ shows,” and noted that musicals are “creatively staged, choreographed and acted,” and that the Dance for Joy program is “ultra important.”

Lineage is a nonprofit performing arts center classified as a 501(c)(3) that focuses on giving back to the community, engaging audiences, and enriching adult and youth development. It provides Teaching Artists in Dance to several Title 1 schools in the Pasadena Unified School District, serving over 350 students each year, and sponsors the John Muir Mystics Dance Team by providing space free of charge and hosting their summer intensive and dance concert annually. The organization has partnered with more than 80 local organizations and councils, raised over $5,000 for special causes in the current year, and makes its space available to community groups and other nonprofits while collaborating with or amplifying other performing arts organizations. Over more than 25 years, Lineage’s history is that of a dance company that grew into a community cultural hub and performing arts center for Pasadena and the surrounding areas, transforming a long-abandoned property into a community arts hub through a $650,000 capital campaign.

Dance for Joy is a program unique to Lineage that provides dance, music, and acting classes to people with Parkinson’s, MS, TBI, and stroke, and this program is free to all participants. There are 6.5 hours of Dance for Joy classes each week, attended by a community of approximately 30 regular participants, and Lineage also offers free weekly dance classes for neurodiverse adults. In 2009, Lineage launched its series of free weekly dance classes for neurodiverse adults, and in 2010 it acquired its first home in Old Town Pasadena before later completing a $650,000 capital campaign after a year of intensive community outreach.

Lineage’s leadership and staff include Executive Director Cynthia Crass and Artistic Director/Founder Hilary Thomas. The team also includes Development and Operations Coordinator Courtney Outland; Associate Director, Dance Company, Caterina Mercante; Site Coordinator / Sound Technician John Guth; and staff in roles such as social media, teaching artists, and interns. Teaching artists and program staff include Nola Gibson, Cindy Camins, Angie Vaughn, Jana Souza, Ericalynn Priolo, Michelle Kolb, Shauna Toh, Brian Elerding, Farah Merani, and Jacqueline Pierce in various dance, acting, singing, and school-based teaching roles. Board leadership includes President Paul Siemens, Co-Secretaries Kristin Brown and Peggy Burt, Treasurer Nancy Guyer, and board members Leilani Wilmore Jones, Austin Roy, Hilary Thomas, Terry Kay, Cindy Camins, Regina Gomez, Robynn Brathwaite, Lillian Rivera, and Laurie Narro.

Last updated March 15, 2026.