About Stela Viorica

A former principal dancer with National Bucharest Opera of Romania, Miss Viorica has been featured in a variety of roles from classical ballets including Don Quixote, Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet, La Fille Mal Gardee, Giselle, Les Sylphide and Sleeping Beauty, as well as numerous contemporary works done by, Anna Sokolov, Alexa Mezincescu, Oleg Danovsky, Amato Checiulescu and Ion Tugearu.

Miss Viorica is a graduate of the State Academy of Ballet of Romania where she was trained in a comprehensive ballet program of nine years. Among other wonderful teachers she had the opportunity to study under Yury Umrihin of the Vaganova Institute.

After touring extensively throughout Europe, Ms. Viorica relocated to California where she began extending her career into choreography, staging, teaching and coaching. Miss Viorica strives to offer students the highest quality of ballet instruction. Under her guidance, her students have been awarded scholarships at world renowned training programs such as National Ballet School of Canada, Kirov Ballet school in Washington DC, American Ballet Theatre, Boston Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet.

As Stella Dance Company's residential Choreographer since 1990, Ms. Viorica has created seven full-length productions including Alice and Wonderland, Mary Poppins, A Christmas Carol, Open Audition, as well as numerous other works, including Black and White in 1994 to celebrate the opening of Hoag Hospital's Cancer Research Center. She received the special award of Outstanding Choreographer at the prestigious Grand Prix Ballet Competition in 2000 in Long Beach and at the Festival of Dance in Laguna Beach in 2003.

Her goal is to promote, preserve and de-mystify the art of dancing in the community, to provide a training ground for aspiring professional dancers, and to be a resource for education and entertainment in Orange County.