Karen Scalzitti-Kennedy is from Hawthorne, NJ and received her formal training at the Irine Fokine School of Ballet in Ridgewood, NJ where she trained with Irine Fokine. She received additional coaching under the guidance of Jeremy Ives and Jeanette Hoffman.

She began her professional career at the age of 18 when she joined Ballet West in Salt Lake City, Utah as a Corps de Ballet member. During her seven years with Ballet West, she worked through the ranks to Soloist and Principal Dancer. She then joined Boston Ballet as Soloist where she was later promoted to Principal Dancer often partnered with Fernando Bujones. She performed the role of Juliet with Bujones in Choo San Goh’s Romeo & Juliet at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC and toured with Mr. Bujones throughout the United States and Puerto Rico. After six years in Boston, she joined Ballet Internationale (formerly Indianapolis Ballet Theatre) as a Principal Dancer in July 1994. She danced with the company for ten years, retiring in 2004.

Scalzitti-Kennedy’s classical repertoire includes principal roles in Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Don Quixote, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, La Fille Mal Garde, Dracula, The Nutcracker, Raymonda, Pas de Quatre, Abdallah, Ashton’s Monotones, Anna Karenina, John Cranko’s Eugene Onegin, La Sylphide, Carnival in Venice, Carmen, Cinderella, Romeo & Juliet, A Thousand and One Nights, Coppelia, Lilac Garden, and The Firebird. Principal roles in Balanchine’s ballets include Bourree Fantasque, Serenade, Concerto Barocco, Who Cares, Apollo, La Sonnambula, The Four Temperaments, and Theme and Variations. Her contemporary repertoire includes Symphony in D, David Bintley’s Allegri Diversi, Creation of the World, Company B, Lambarena, Billy the Kid, Rodeo, Carmina Burana and Phaedra. During her career she performed throughout the United States including Hawaii and Alaska, and abroad in Taiwan, Spain, and China.

Ms. Scalzitti-Kennedy is now the proud mother of two beautiful girls.