We are so lucky to have Ms. Nell as one of our summer intensive dance instructors and fortunate to have her part of the team all season long. Her love and passion for dance and the dancers is shown in everything she does. We are excited to have her train the dancers this summer and push them to their next level. Prior to moving to the FM area, Ms. Nell was teaching at Houston Ballet Academy in their professional ballet division.
Join us for an amazing July of dance at our 2025 Summer Dance Intensive. In-person auditions will take place Saturday, February 22.

Nell Cunningham
Nell’s early ballet years were spent in the Bay Area, California where she studied at Benicia Ballet School under the guidance of Jeannie Pors. During her years with Ms. Pors, Nell achieved Distinction and High Distinction in her Graded and Vocational exams with the Royal Academy of Dance. At fifteen she began training at the prestigious Marin Ballet Academy, and that summer she was accepted into the summer intensive program at The Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia, PA. At the conclusion of the summer program, sh was offered a place in their year-round professional ballet training program and moved to Pennsylvania to board at the school while training under some incredible teachers, including Violette Verdy, Bo and Stephanie Spassoff, Christopher Flemming, and Natalya Zeiger. She graduated from their program in 2004 with her high school diploma and a full scholarship to dance at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT.
At university, she took the opportunity to expand her knowledge of world and cultural dance styles, touring for three years with the world-renowned International Folk Dance Ensemble. She received training in many styles including: Irish, Indian (Bharatanatyam), Bollywood, Chinese, Mexican, Spanish, Hungarian, Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, and French-Canadian dances, as well as American style clogging—styles she performed all over the world. She received her Bachelors Degree in Dance with a double emphasis in Ballet Pedagogy and World Dance from BYU in 2013.
It was during her time with the Ensemble that she developed a deep love for Character Ballet, a fusion of classical ballet and traditional folk-dance styles, and has recently received certification in the Vaganova method of teaching ballet and character dance from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow. Before moving to Fargo, Nell taught at Houston Ballet Academy in their Professional Ballet and Adult Ballet Divisions, as well as working as an assistant to the Children’s Ballet Master at Houston Ballet.
Nell deeply loves teaching intermediate and advanced classical ballet, pointe, and character dance styles as well as choreographing classical and character ballet. She is proud to join the faculty here at Gasper’s School of Dance and is so happy to share her love of ballet with her students. In her free time, she enjoys acting, singing, cross stitching, and spending time with her husband Chris, their sons Charlie, Henry and Jamie, and their bunny Stormy.
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