New York City–Based Ballet Teacher Kate Loh’s Journey From Performer to Open-Class Teacher

Many, but not all, of the most sought-after open-class teachers in cities like New York transition to teaching from high-profile performance and choreography careers. Their built-in fanbase fills classrooms with students who aspire to similar stages. For teachers who have a different path, though, building a teaching career in a major city can be a challenge.

For Kate Loh, a popular ballet teacher at Steps on Broadway, Ballet Arts, Broadway Dance Center, and other studios, finding her footing as an open-class teacher took years, as well as some key pivots. As a teen, Loh supplemented her pre-professional training at Steps on Broadway, where she says she got to watch the best dancers at work. “I would be watching Julie Kent and Maria Kowroski, and working with Willy Burmann and Nancy Bielski, and seeing that standard made me super-analytical.” 

As she neared the end of her performance career with Charleston Ballet Theatre, Connecticut Ballet, and several companies based in New York City, she reconnected with the idea of becoming a teacher. She was also inspired by her mother, who taught special education. “Teaching was always in my mind,” Loh says. “I love being able to help somebody that maybe doesn’t feel like anyone believes in them, and to be the one who gives them the confidence.”

She started to formulate her own corrections during classes and rehearsals. “It’s fascinating how you can’t say the same thing to everybody,” she says. “A slight adjustment for one body might not work, but a slight adjustment for another body could be all the difference in the world.”

Loh first subbed for smaller ballet schools, which allowed her to experiment with her class arrangement and taught her the importance of bringing positive energy into the room for her students. Then she got the opportunity to sub at Peridance for a teacher she had worked with closely. “It was the morning after Christmas,” she says, “so nobody was going to be there. But I couldn’t wait to do it.” She kept saying yes to subbing, teaching two or three students at a time in the Peridance basement. Eventually she was offered her own class. “Because they were small, I really got to practice my structure and communicating with the class, how I wanted to correct people, and how to work with different kinds of students. In an open class, you get a variety of dancers in one room.” Peridance is also where she learned to teach with a live pianist.

From there, she subbed a fitness class for a friend at Broadway Dance Center. “That got me in their system,” Loh says. It took a long time, she says, but eventually BDC was “in a pinch” and let her teach a ballet class. Around the same time, she began subbing for Antoinette Peloso at Ballet Arts. “She would go away a lot, and so I started subbing her morning class there, and that was like another level of dancers.” 

The pandemic also led to new opportunities for Loh. She started teaching company class for Ballet Hispánico because their usual teachers weren’t in the city at the time. “I taught three dancers in masks for the first BAAND festival and the virtual Fall for Dance,” she says. “From there, they kept me on.” When Ballet Hispánico’s then-company manager Glenn Allen Sims began working at Steps on Broadway, he helped Loh get the chance to sub. Eventually, a year later, she earned her own class. Loh spread the word to all the students she had reached over the years, and her class had enough of a turnout to get her established at Steps. Now, her classes are close to full on a daily basis. 

Loh advises her students and other aspiring teachers to stay the course, even if they sometimes feel impatient when waiting for their hard work to pan out. “We can’t control the timeline,” she says. “Take advantage of the waiting and diligently fine-tune your skills, so when the chance eventually presents itself, you can handle it with confidence and poise.”

That’s what Loh says her journey has taught her. “I really was a nobody, quite frankly. I didn’t have a big career where they were all going to be so excited to have me teach. I was just somebody who thought they could be a good teacher,” says Loh. “Actually, I was pretty confident that I could be a good teacher, but I just needed a chance.”