Aaron Blizzard is a professional dancer, former national competitor, teacher, and assistant director of Northern Classical Ballet. With a versatile dance background reaching over the last two decades, he holds dance training and teaching certifications in many forms of dance including Ballet and Ballroom. He is the owner of Blizzard Art & Performance, providing Cleveland and Erie, Pennsylvania with ballroom instruction, performance, and competitive coaching. To complement his dance background, Aaron is a personal trainer specializing in corrective exercise techniques, strength and conditioning, and flexibility.
Aaron started his dance training at the age of 10 at the Waterbury Arts Magnet School (School of Performing Arts Division) Located in Connecticut. Throughout high school he attended Earl Mosely’s Institute of the Arts where he had the privilege of training with and working on repertoires under artists such as Sidra Bell, Camille A. Brown and Meredith Rainey. Aaron trained in Ballet under Nutmeg Conservatory’s Senior Ballet Master and Russian Choreographic School Graduate Donna Bonasera at the Connecticut Dance Theatre. Upon graduating high school in 2010 he went on to apprentice under Donna Bonasera in teaching the Vaganova Method. While at CDT, Aaron completed an apprenticeship with Elm City Dance Collective–a postmodern company based in New Haven, Connecticut through Yale University. This venture took him into Ballroom dance at Fred Astaire Dance Studios where he trained and competed professionally and taught private dance lessons. Aaron left Connecticut Dance Theatre and Fred Astaire in 2017 to relocate to Cleveland, Ohio.
Aaron moved to Cleveland in order to further his competitive dance career with dance partner Jenny Lu. In 2019, Aaron joined the staff at Above the Barre Dance and Gymnastics as a ballroom instructor. Upon its reopening in late 2020, Aaron was promoted to Assistant Director of the Ballet Program where he teaches and assists in the direction of their Nutcracker Ballet production. Aaron still teaches at ATB but retired from dancing competitively in 2020.
During the height of the pandemic and after his competitive retirement, Aaron completed his CDCA and became a licensed therapist in the State of Ohio. He then integrated dance into his therapy in order to create his own Dance Therapy curriculum. In 2020, Aaron and his partner Dr. Nathal founded the wellness center BN Wellness Group where this dance therapy curriculum is used today.