SCHOOL FACULTY
Thyrsa Da Rosa Hartel
Ballet & Modern Dance Instructor
Thyrsa Da Rosa Hartel is a native of Asuncion, Paraguay. She graduated from the National Institute of Fine Arts of Paraguay with a degree in Classical Ballet Pedagogy, and then studied modern dance at the University of Oklahoma, with extensive focus in Graham and Limón techniques. She has performed with the National Ballet of Paraguay, and was a member of Momentum Dance Company of Guatemala City, touring Guatemala and Mexico. As a founding member and Executive Director of the OKC-based Hartel Dance Group, she has performed in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Sioux Falls, SD; Fort Myers and Orlando, FL; Austin, TX; New York City; Spain and Asuncion, Paraguay.
Thyrsa has been a member of the jury of the Seminario Internacional de Danca de Brasilia since 2014, teaching classes, coaching, and judging one of the oldest dance competitions in Brazil. Since 2016 she has traveled to teach and coach dancers at the Centre de la Dansa de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain during the summers. She has taught ballet and modern dance at Oklahoma City Ballet Conservatory and Inner City Dance OKC, among others.
Thyrsa is a certified Pilates instructor, Progressing Ballet Technique and also an American Ballet Theatre® National Training Curriculum Fellowship Teacher, who has completed certification in Primary through Level 5 of the American Ballet Theatre® National Training Curriculum. She is currently Communications Director for the Oklahoma International Dance Festival and also teaches at the Oklahoma City Ballet Yvonne Chouteau School.
Thyrsa has been a member of the jury of the Seminario Internacional de Danca de Brasilia since 2014, teaching classes, coaching, and judging one of the oldest dance competitions in Brazil. Since 2016 she has traveled to teach and coach dancers at the Centre de la Dansa de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain during the summers. She has taught ballet and modern dance at Oklahoma City Ballet Conservatory and Inner City Dance OKC, among others.
Thyrsa is a certified Pilates instructor, Progressing Ballet Technique and also an American Ballet Theatre® National Training Curriculum Fellowship Teacher, who has completed certification in Primary through Level 5 of the American Ballet Theatre® National Training Curriculum. She is currently Communications Director for the Oklahoma International Dance Festival and also teaches at the Oklahoma City Ballet Yvonne Chouteau School.
Charles Martin
Ballet Instructor
Charles Martin received his primary training from Penny Askew at the Western Oklahoma Ballet Academy in Clinton, Oklahoma. He also studied on scholarship at the American Ballet Theatre and Joffrey Ballet School’s Summer Intensives in New York. He joined Kansas City Ballet in the fall of 2007 and danced with the company for 11 seasons, performing leading roles in works by Twyla Tharp, Jessica Lang, José Limón, Val Caniparoli, and George Balanchine, among others. He has also danced with Robert Dekkers’ Post:Ballet in San Francisco, Owen/Cox Dance Group in Kansas City, Remix touring Austria, and as a character artist with Oklahoma City Ballet.
Charles’s choreography has been performed by Kansas City Ballet, Kansas City Ballet II, and Kansas City Youth Ballet; Quixotic Performance Fusion; Remix; Oklahoma City Ballet’s Studio Company, Trainees, and Youth Ballet; and several Regional Dance America companies. He is also a répétiteur, staging works for professional companies, including Val Caniparoli’s The Lottery for Nashville Ballet and Penny Saunders’ Ghost Light for Dayton Ballet, to name a few. He also makes tutus and other ballet costumes.
Charles has taught at the Regional Dance America/Northeast Festival, The Glenda Brown Choreography Project, the Lorraine Cranford Summer Dance Workshop, and at Kansas City Ballet’s and Oklahoma City Ballet’s Summer Intensives, in addition to guest teaching for many schools and pre-professional companies. Charles is currently on staff for Stars of Tomorrow International, teaching in schools across Austria, and on faculty with the Oklahoma City Ballet Yvonne Chouteau School. Charles is an ABT® National Training Curriculum Certified Teacher in Pre-Primary through Level 5.
Walker Martin
Ballet Instructor
Walker Martin received his primary training with Penny Askew at the Western Oklahoma Ballet Academy in Clinton, Oklahoma. He also studied in New York City on scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School and American Ballet Theatre® (ABT) Summer Intensives, and was named an ABT® National Training Scholar from 2009 to 2011. Walker continued his training at Houston Ballet’s Ben Stevenson Academy, where he performed with Houston Ballet in Ben Stevenson’s The Nutcracker and Stanton Welch’s Cinderella during the 2011-2012 season. He then danced with Ballet Quad Cities for a season before joining Oklahoma City Ballet in 2013. He was promoted to Soloist in 2016.
With Oklahoma City Ballet, Walker performed leading and feature roles, including The White Rabbit in Septime Webre’s ALICE (in wonderland), Melancholic in George Balanchine’s The Four Temperaments, Jonathan Harker and Renfield in Michael Pink’s Dracula, The Champion Roper in Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo, Mercutio and Benvolio in Robert Mills’ Romeo & Juliet, Hans and the Sugar Plum Cavalier in Mills’ The Nutcracker, Puck in Mills’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as the title role in Paul Vasterling’s Peter Pan. Additionally, Walker’s repertoire includes works by Twyla Tharp, Stanton Welch, Helen Pickett, Toni Pimble, and Amy Seiwert, and he has also created roles in Adam by Cayetano Soto, Exurgency by Matthew Neenan, Speaking in Spheres by Brian Enos, Forgotten Memories by Ma Cong, and If These Walls Could Talk by Sarah Tallman. Walker will be joining Diablo Ballet for the 2021-2022 season.
Walker is certified in Pre-Primary through Level 7 of the American Ballet Theatre® National Training Curriculum, and is an ABT® Fellowship Teacher, having successfully presented students for examinations.