Ashley Parov is an Associate Professor of Dance at Brigham Young University, where she teaches upper-level ballet technique, ballet pedagogy, pas de deux, variations, and kinesiology for dancers. Her teaching, choreography, and research draw on a wide-ranging professional background as a classical and contemporary ballet artist, educator, and movement specialist.

Ms. Parov began her early ballet training with Zola Dishong and Richard Cammack at Contra Costa Ballet Centre in Walnut Creek, California. At age 13, she was accepted as a full-scholarship student at the San Francisco Ballet School, where she trained under the direction of Lola DeAvila, Gloria Govrin, Sandra Jennings, Pascale Leroy, Shannon Bresnahan, Jocelyn Vollmar, and Irina Jacobson. While at the school, she performed extensively with San Francisco Ballet in supernumerary, apprentice, and corps de ballet roles. At 16, she was invited to join the company on it’s summer tour to London and Spain, performing in Helgi Tomasson’s Swan Lake. She later joined San Francisco Ballet as an apprentice before transitioning into the corps de ballet.

After earning a BA in Dance from Brigham Young University, Ms. Parov returned to the San Francisco Bay Area to dance with Charles Anderson’s Company C Contemporary Ballet. During her tenure with Company C, she performed leading roles in works by Twyla Tharp, David Parsons, Charles Anderson, Val Caniparoli, Michael Smuin, Lar Lubovitch, and Amy Seiwert. She later earned an MFA in Dance with honors from Saint Mary’s College of California.

Professor Parov is a certified Pilates instructor and holds teaching certifications in the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, American Ballet Theatre, and 4Pointe Method curriculums. She has also received training in the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet method. Her academic and pedagogical research, developed in collaboration with Professor Shayla Bott and Brenda Critchfield, has been presented at the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science and CORPS de Ballet International. Through her work as an artist-scholar, Professor Parov continues to integrate professional performance experience, somatic inquiry, and evidence-informed pedagogy in the training of the next generation of dance artists.