The South Carolina Dance Theatre hosted a ballet intensive workshop during the week of August 3 - 7 featuring dance professionals Karl Singletary and Gyula Pandi as guest teachers. Classes included  technique, choreography and variations with pas de deux classes for advanced dancers. The workshop offered dancers a unique opportunity to train with professionals who have a wealth of performance experience and technique. The workshop was open to all area dancers as  an outreach of the SCDT, a pre-professional ballet company founded in 1976. As a nonprofit corporation, the SCDT encourages and nurtures the artistic growth of dance as a performing art.

Karl Singletary’s dance training began in Buffalo, New York and continued in West Berlin, Germany with the Berlin Opera Theatre Ballet School. In 1968 he was the first African American dancer to receive a full tuition scholarship to the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) in New York. While dancing with the American Classical Ballet, he traveled across Europe performing with notables such as Rudolph Nureyev. After dancing with the Niagara Frontier Ballet, he founded the Buffalo Inner-City Ballet Company to provide minority and disadvantaged children of Western New York the opportunity to train in classical dance. Recognized as a knowledgeable consultant in the Russian Ballet Vaganova, Mr. Singletary has taught at numerous ballet companies across America and travels to Brazil each summer as a guest artist. He currently serves as an artist in residence with the AIE Grant Program through the South Carolina Arts Commission and Florence County School District Three and is a staff member of Dancin’ On Main in Lake City.

Gyula Pandi is a renowned Master Teacher who gives classes across the United States and Europe. He trained and performed with the Hungarian National Ballet and was on the faculty at North Carolina School of the Arts for 26 years until his retirement in 2003. He has traveled extensively throughout the United States teaching master classes at venues such as the North Carolina Dance Theatre, the South Carolina Governor’s School of the Arts, the Maryland School of Ballet and Modern Dance, and Wake Forest University. A Varna medalist, Mr. Pandi arranges travel and accommodations for students of the Hungarian National Ballet to come and study in the United States for the summer. Additionally, he has taken students from America to Hungary for further study and set The Nutcracker on the Hungarian State Ballet with Robert Lindgren from NCSA. He was recently hired to serve on the coaching team for figure skater, Kimmie Meissner, who is the 2006 World Champion, 2007 US National Champion, 2007 Four Continents Champion and the 2007 Skate America Champion.

Dedicated to dance development and performance experience, the SCDT is known for its annual production of "Nutcracker." The company presented "Sleeping Beauty" this past season and hosted the Sugar Plum Fairy’s Tea Party and Sleeping Beauty’s Garden Party as part of the outreach of the Company.

The Artistic Director is Susan Rowe, a graduate of the North Carolina School of Arts who holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. Former Ballet Mistress of the Les Ballets de Monte Carlo in Monaco and the Ballet du Nord in Roubaix, France, she was also a principal dancer with the Ballet du Nord as well as the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, Washington. Her dance experience also includes performance with the Frankfurt Ballet in Germany, the Feld Ballet in New York, the NC Dance Theatre in Winston-Salem and the Agnes DeMille Heritage Dance Theatre. Her extensive training includes study with the American Ballet Theatre, the School of American Ballet, the Princess Grace Academy of Dance and Franchetti Studios in Paris, France. Miss Rowe also teaches dance at South Florence High School through Florence School District One and is the French teacher at All Saints Episcopal Church Day School. She trains Company dancers with weekly classes and rehearsals at the SCDT’s studio at 1810-B Second Loop Road. Part of an artistic team in Florence, she is married to Dr. Terry Roberts, Director of the Florence Symphony Orchestra.