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Cassidy Doan
Dancer

Cassidy Doan and her passion for ballet began at the age of three when she took her first ballet class at Southland Ballet Academy, under the guidance of Salwa Rizkalla and Hanna Karacic. Since then, Cassidy has had the privilege to be mentored by many notable ballet professionals, including Claudio Muñoz, Larissa Saveliev, Christopher Powney, Lauren Anderson, and others. Cassidy has been dancing for a total of 15 years thus far and started her professional dance career when she was only 12. Her extensive background in dance also includes pointework, contemporary, modern, jazz, nutrition, Gyrotonic, and more. Over the years, Cassidy has had the opportunity to perform in a wide variety of productions with Festival Ballet Theatre and Houston Ballet. She has performed lead roles such as Clara in The Nutcracker, and other soloist roles in Swan LakeDon QuixoteGiselleSleeping BeautyCoppélia, and more. 

In 2018, Cassidy was awarded second place in the classical ballet division at Youth American Grand Prix (YAGP) in Los Angeles, the world's largest global competition for dance. Youth American Grand Prix subsequently invited Cassidy to participate in the New York Finals, where she received a full-merit scholarship to a year-round professional program at Houston Ballet Academy. She was one of only two dancers, out of 3,000, to receive this scholarship. Cassidy moved away from home independently at the age of 15 to pursue her dreams of becoming the first Vietnamese-American professional ballerina and train full-time in Houston, Texas. Her daily routine consisted of intense ballet classes and rehearsals six days a week, from 9 am to 4 pm, as well as maintaining her own apartment and academic work. Cassidy is now beyond excited to return home to Southland Ballet as one of its alumni, attend University of California, Irvine, and work with the next generation of promising dancers.