Lydia Morales Hoffman started dancing at age 4. She became dedicated to ballet at age 11 and pursued her studies at the School of Performing and Visual Arts (US International University) earning a BFA in Ballet. During this time, she had the unique opportunity of learning and performing the principal role in Giselle and in Swan Lake Act II. She also studied, taught and performed ballet folklorico (Mexico) and Flamenco during this time. She has been a teacher of ballet, folklorico and flamenco since her teenage years and has taught and choreographed on the various ballet schools/companies in San Diego (San Diego Ballet, Black Mountain Dance Theatre), Milwaukee and Tucson. She directed the Arizona Dance Theatre Ballet School in Tucson.

After dancing and touring with Ballet International (based in San Diego), she danced principal roles with the Milwaukee Ballet, notably the role of Marie/Clara in the Nutcracker as well as principal/solo roles in many other traditional and original choreographies which were taken on tour throughout the US.

Ms. Morales Hoffman has a MA in dance from UCLA where her work involved a comparative study of classical dance – east (Bharata Natyam from India) and west (ballet). She was awarded a grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies to study dance and dancers in Madras (now Chennai), India in 1985. There she performed, taught and choreographed ballets on young dancers. She recently had an opportunity to also teach dance in Tokyo, Japan. Lydia also served on the Policy Board of The California Arts Project, a statewide funded program for professional development of educators.

Currently, she is working with training of bilingual elementary teachers at SDSU and continues to bring the arts and dance into the classroom as well as teaching and working with aspiring ballet dancers.

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