Julia James

Julia danced as an apprentice with New York City Ballet from 2000 to 2002 after training year-round at the School of American Ballet from age 15 to 17. She attended summer sessions at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and San Francisco Ballet School and, before moving to New York, studied at the Ballet West Conservatory and as a concurrent student at the University of Utah. She earned a bachelor’s degree in geological and environmental sciences and a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford and works full-time as a digital media strategist and freelance writer.

As an apprentice with New York City Ballet, Julia performed in George Balanchine’s “Firebird,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Nutcracker,” “Tchaikovsky Suite No. 3,” “Symphony in C” and “Walpurgisnacht Ballet”; Jerome Robbins’ “The Four Seasons”; Peter Martins’ “Swan Lake”; Richard Tanner’s “Soiree”; and the world premier of Eliot Feld’s “Oganon.” As a student at the School of American ballet, she performed in George Balanchine’s “Concerto Barocco,” “Stars and Stripes” and “Danses Concertantes”; August Bournonville's “Konservatoriet”; and the world premier of Chris Wheeldon’s Scènes de Ballet. 

Her former teachers include Suki Schorer, Susie Pilarre, Kay Mazzo, Antonina Tumkovsky, Jock Soto, Peter Boal and Andre Kramerevsky (at SAB); Victoria Pulkkinen, Flemming Halby, Abbie Siegel, Louise Nadeau, Phillip Otto, Marjorie Thompson and Francia Russell (at PNB); Gloria Govrin, Jorge Esquivel and Sandra Jennings (at San Francisco Ballet School); and Maureen Laird, Bené Arnold and Conrad Ludlow (at the University of Utah).

Julia taught once a week at Pacific Ballet Academy from 2005 to 2007 and returned to the school in 2011.