The Ballet School Performing Arts
The Ballet School Performing Arts, 1131 Locust St., 2nd Flr, Walnut Creek, CA 94596
About
The Ballet School Performing Arts offers dance, theatre, acting, music, and a creative dance program, along with ballet, tap, and musical theater dance. Students can also take part in activities that include backstage terminology, improvisation, singing, and choreography.
• Ages: 3–18 years old
Lareen Fender’s The Ballet School Performing Arts has been in Walnut Creek since 1976 and is described as one of the longest running businesses in existence in Downtown Walnut Creek. The school’s performing company is The Ballet Joyeux, a classical ballet company with a repertoire that includes Etudes, Peter, Petra and The Wolf, Concert Waltzes, Cakewalk, Celebration for Life, Rodeo, The Shellie Awards, Art on the Main, Thanks for The Memory, and The Family Day Festival. The Family Day Festival celebrated the opening of the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts. The Ballet Joyeux has been performing throughout the Bay Area for the past twenty-eight years and has performed with Diablo Symphony and in yearly lecture demonstrations.
The leadership team includes founder Lareen Fender, director and owner Jenny, and Jennifer Perry, who leads The Ballet Joyeux and is a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award and Shellie Award winner. The Ballet School Performing Arts states that it celebrates “the gift of everyday,” stays positive in its teaching while teaching body alignment, technique, and discipline, and has a stated goal from the director and owner to inspire and teach excellence in the classroom and create a safe environment to grow and learn. The director also states that it is very important to have an excellent teaching staff who are described as wonderful role models for students. The Ballet School Performing Arts is recognized as a SAFE STUDIO by the “HEALTHY DA:NCE” organization and states that it is committed to providing a safe space for students to train in age-appropriate, safe environments that will not sexualize or exploit them. The school is described as a HOME away from HOME, and it is stated that there is no competition at the school and that it is described as a family.
Parent and student comments describe the school as keeping children engaged on Zoom, handling reopening in a slow, cautious, and safe way, and being an important part of their lives. One parent notes that their child participates in the creative dance program for children starting at 2.5 years old. Another parent describes The Young Actors Studio at The Ballet School as including backstage terminology, improvisation, singing, and choreography, with a summer session showcase onstage at the Lesher Center where every child, including 5-year-olds, performed a monologue. A former student who now attends as an adult describes enjoying ballet, tap, and musical theater dance and notes that the studio has expanded in many ways and that the teachers and staff are fun.
Last updated March 21, 2026.
• Ages: 3–18 years old
Lareen Fender’s The Ballet School Performing Arts has been in Walnut Creek since 1976 and is described as one of the longest running businesses in existence in Downtown Walnut Creek. The school’s performing company is The Ballet Joyeux, a classical ballet company with a repertoire that includes Etudes, Peter, Petra and The Wolf, Concert Waltzes, Cakewalk, Celebration for Life, Rodeo, The Shellie Awards, Art on the Main, Thanks for The Memory, and The Family Day Festival. The Family Day Festival celebrated the opening of the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts. The Ballet Joyeux has been performing throughout the Bay Area for the past twenty-eight years and has performed with Diablo Symphony and in yearly lecture demonstrations.
The leadership team includes founder Lareen Fender, director and owner Jenny, and Jennifer Perry, who leads The Ballet Joyeux and is a San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award and Shellie Award winner. The Ballet School Performing Arts states that it celebrates “the gift of everyday,” stays positive in its teaching while teaching body alignment, technique, and discipline, and has a stated goal from the director and owner to inspire and teach excellence in the classroom and create a safe environment to grow and learn. The director also states that it is very important to have an excellent teaching staff who are described as wonderful role models for students. The Ballet School Performing Arts is recognized as a SAFE STUDIO by the “HEALTHY DA:NCE” organization and states that it is committed to providing a safe space for students to train in age-appropriate, safe environments that will not sexualize or exploit them. The school is described as a HOME away from HOME, and it is stated that there is no competition at the school and that it is described as a family.
Parent and student comments describe the school as keeping children engaged on Zoom, handling reopening in a slow, cautious, and safe way, and being an important part of their lives. One parent notes that their child participates in the creative dance program for children starting at 2.5 years old. Another parent describes The Young Actors Studio at The Ballet School as including backstage terminology, improvisation, singing, and choreography, with a summer session showcase onstage at the Lesher Center where every child, including 5-year-olds, performed a monologue. A former student who now attends as an adult describes enjoying ballet, tap, and musical theater dance and notes that the studio has expanded in many ways and that the teachers and staff are fun.
Last updated March 21, 2026.
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