Local dancer, local designer are the stars at 'Black Swan' performance

CORNWALL — This spring, audiences in the Hudson Valley will have the opportunity to see the famed “Black Swan” variation from Swan Lake performed by Montana Nogrady, a senior at Valley Central High School.

She will be wearing a costume designed by Toya Dubin, the winner of the Orange County Arts Council's Youth with Exceptional Promise award.

Montana is a lifetime student of ballet at Step By Step Studios in Cornwall. She has also performed with Step It Up Productions at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the London Stage. Montana additionally danced lead roles with Step it Up Productions and the Orange County Ballet Theatre. This summer she will be performing in Scotland at the Fringe Festival.

Montana has attended summer programs at the Joffrey School, the American Academy of Ballet, where she was cast as a lead soloist, and at the Pulse. She intends to pursue a professional dance career upon graduation.

Toya is currently studying costume design at SUNY Purchase.

Continuing the theme of locally sourced talent, the choreography for this version of the Black Swan has been adapted from the original Petipa by Veronica Nogrady, a Vaganova Ballet Technique teacher at Step By Step Studios in Cornwall-on-Hudson.

The Hudson Valley fosters a spirit of creative community collaboration. Montana and Veronica Nogrady have worked with Toya previously as their devotion to dance allowed the team to collaborate on a number of performances here in the Hudson Valley.

The performance of the Black Swan Variation is planned for May 31 at 5 p.m. at Cornwall Central High School.

Tickets for this performance can be purchased by contacting Step By Step Dance Studio at 845-534-3645 or on the web at http://stepbystepdancestudiony.com/.