Lineage Performing Arts Education
Lineage Performing Arts Center, 920 E. Mountain St., Pasadena, CA 91104
About
Lineage Performing Arts Education offers performing arts education classes that include dance, music, acting, musical theatre, modern dance, and theatre. The program also connects to interdisciplinary performances, community arts workshops, the Dance for Joy program, and the Kids Broadway Program.
• Ages: 5–18 years old
Lineage Performing Arts Education is part of a nonprofit performing arts center classified as a 501(c)(3) with a mission to serve as a hub for artistic connection and creative expression, offering diverse opportunities in dance, music, theatre, and the performing arts. The organization teaches classes in Musical Theatre, Modern Dance, and Acting, serving over 100 students each year, and serves over 350 students each year through school-based dance education. In 2024, its arts education programs served more than 3,200 individuals and its original productions perform for an audience of over 2,000 people each year, including 7–8 original multidisciplinary productions that combine dance, music, and storytelling, as well as a book musical each year reimagined with primarily movement and dance.
The Dance for Joy program focuses on providing free dance, music, and acting classes to people with Parkinson’s, MS, TBI, and stroke, with 6.5 hours of free Dance for Joy classes each week. A Lineage patron described Lineage 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 Performing Arts Education operates within an organization that has a 25-year history as a dance company that grew into a community cultural hub and performing arts center, founded by Artistic Director Hilary Thomas in 1999 and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2007. The organization completed a $650,000 capital campaign to transform a long-abandoned property into a community arts hub and hosts visiting artists in its black box theatre and dance studio. The leadership team includes Executive Director Cynthia Crass (she/her), Artistic Director/Founder Hilary Thomas (she/her), Development and Operations Coordinator Courtney Outland (she/her), Associate Director, Dance Company Caterina Mercante (she/her), Site Coordinator / Sound Technician John Guth (he/him), Social Media staff member Donnie Riddle (he/him), LACDAC Intern 2025–2026 Raya Hassanpour Mashhady (she/her), and Sequoyah Interns Talulah Shadrick and Olive Harpster.
Lineage’s community involvement includes raising funds and awareness for local nonprofits with dance performances and partnering with more than 80 local organizations and councils, raising over $5,000 for special causes in a year. The organization provides Teaching Artists in Dance to several Title 1 schools in the Pasadena Unified School District and sponsors the John Muir Mystics Dance Team by providing space free of charge and hosting their summer intensive and dance concert annually. It makes its space available to community groups and other nonprofits, collaborates with or amplifies other performing arts organizations, and, through strategic partnerships with nonprofits, uses the arts to raise awareness and support for causes that strengthen and uplift the community.
Last updated June 16, 2026.
• Ages: 5–18 years old
Lineage Performing Arts Education is part of a nonprofit performing arts center classified as a 501(c)(3) with a mission to serve as a hub for artistic connection and creative expression, offering diverse opportunities in dance, music, theatre, and the performing arts. The organization teaches classes in Musical Theatre, Modern Dance, and Acting, serving over 100 students each year, and serves over 350 students each year through school-based dance education. In 2024, its arts education programs served more than 3,200 individuals and its original productions perform for an audience of over 2,000 people each year, including 7–8 original multidisciplinary productions that combine dance, music, and storytelling, as well as a book musical each year reimagined with primarily movement and dance.
The Dance for Joy program focuses on providing free dance, music, and acting classes to people with Parkinson’s, MS, TBI, and stroke, with 6.5 hours of free Dance for Joy classes each week. A Lineage patron described Lineage 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 Performing Arts Education operates within an organization that has a 25-year history as a dance company that grew into a community cultural hub and performing arts center, founded by Artistic Director Hilary Thomas in 1999 and incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2007. The organization completed a $650,000 capital campaign to transform a long-abandoned property into a community arts hub and hosts visiting artists in its black box theatre and dance studio. The leadership team includes Executive Director Cynthia Crass (she/her), Artistic Director/Founder Hilary Thomas (she/her), Development and Operations Coordinator Courtney Outland (she/her), Associate Director, Dance Company Caterina Mercante (she/her), Site Coordinator / Sound Technician John Guth (he/him), Social Media staff member Donnie Riddle (he/him), LACDAC Intern 2025–2026 Raya Hassanpour Mashhady (she/her), and Sequoyah Interns Talulah Shadrick and Olive Harpster.
Lineage’s community involvement includes raising funds and awareness for local nonprofits with dance performances and partnering with more than 80 local organizations and councils, raising over $5,000 for special causes in a year. The organization provides Teaching Artists in Dance to several Title 1 schools in the Pasadena Unified School District and sponsors the John Muir Mystics Dance Team by providing space free of charge and hosting their summer intensive and dance concert annually. It makes its space available to community groups and other nonprofits, collaborates with or amplifies other performing arts organizations, and, through strategic partnerships with nonprofits, uses the arts to raise awareness and support for causes that strengthen and uplift the community.
Last updated June 16, 2026.
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