Brittany Shinay

Photo: Christy Bosher.

A native of Boston, Brittany Shinay trained with Jamey Leverett and Tim Draper at the Draper Center for Dance Education in Rochester, New York, as well as with Fiona Fairrie, Parker Esse, Leslie Browne, Edward Ellison, Alla Nikitina, and Marie Welch.

Coached by Leverett, Shinay competed in the 2007 YAGP NYC Finals, where she received a Gold Medal with Jim Nowakowski, leading to an invited performance at the 50th Anniversary of the Festival dei Due Mondi “Gala Di Danza” in Spoleto, Italy. There, she and Nowakowski performed alongside ABT’s Paloma Herrera and Gennadi Saveliev and stars of the Vienna State Opera Ballet as well as other world-class companies. Shinay was a 2008 National YoungArts winner, attended Juilliard’s BFA in Dance on full scholarship, was a trainee of Boston Ballet where she performed in Mikko Nissinen’s the Nutcracker, and was honored to work with several of the world’s leading choreographers.

As a principal dancer with the Rochester City Ballet, Georgia Ballet, and guest artist with City Center Ballet, Shinay danced the title roles in Cinderella and The Firebird; Titania in Frederick Ashton’s The Dream; Sugar Plum Fairy and Snow Queen in The Nutcracker; Medora in Le Corsaire; and the lead role in Jeff Tyzik’s Bravo! Colorado with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra.

Moving to New York City in 2017, she was hired by choreographer Jason Wise as associate choreographer for Mamma Mia!, the inaugural production of the equity theatre, A.C.T. of Connecticut, founded by Broadway’s Daniel C. Levine, Katie Diamond, and Bryan Perri, under the artistic advisory of Stephen Schwartz. She then served as associate choreographer for Ryan Raftery’s The Obsession of Calvin Klein at The Public Theater.

Shinay has taught ballet and choreographed for Draper Center for Dance Education in Rochester, New York, and other studios throughout the United States for the past 12 years, coaching students for prominent U.S. and international competitions. She is an ABT National Training Curriculum Certified Teacher in Pre-Primary through Level 7 and currently holds faculty positions at the ABT Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, Princeton Dance & Theater Studio, and Bay Ridge Prep.

Shinay is a 2023 graduate of Columbia University with a Bachelor of Arts in History where she performed in Jeremy McQueen’s Kinetic with the Columbia Ballet Collaborative. In 2024, she earned her Master of Arts in Dance Education: Teaching in the Profession and ABT Ballet Pedagogy offered through NYU’s Steinhardt School and American Ballet Theatre.