Founder and Director

Megan Yackovich is the founder of Ballet Taos, a professional contemporary ballet company and training academy located in beautiful Taos, NM. During her successful career as a professional ballet dancer, which began at the age of seventeen, Megan concentrated on the restaging of classical ballets for professional companies across the United States. It was through this work that she discovered her passion for teaching young, aspiring dancers. Her proven approach combines elements of the Vaganova and Royal Ballet syllabi, emphasizes a strong work ethic, and implements the latest in injury prevention techniques. Her philosophy is to inspire the whole artist through the mastery of classical ballet and it’s artistic refinement. Her intent is to ready her students for higher education and professional careers in dance.

After retiring from the stage, she served as the Artistic Director of The Peak Ballet Theatre and The Peak Ballet Theatre II (PBT II) for ten years. During her time in Colorado Springs, she had the privilege of working alongside her mentors, David Taylor, Mark and Sandra Carlson, German Zamuel, the late Milenko Banovich, and Conductors Thomas Wilson and the late Lawrence Leighton Smith. She hosted master classes for her students at PBT II with renowned teachers and choreographers such as, Meelis Pakri, Peter Davison and Robert Sher-Macherndl.

In the classroom, she provides a nurturing environment conducive to the needs of the young artist, while encouraging her dancers to meet the technical and physical demands of classical ballet and contemporary dance. Proper body alignment, strength, flexibility, consistency in “turnout,” and injury prevention are at the forefront of every class, ensuring a lifelong career in dance for her students. Her progressive approach to teaching integrated methods of classical technique continues to produce excellent results.

Her students have enjoyed the success of receiving recognition, acceptance to and scholarships from professional ballet companies, year-round schools and summer intensives worldwide. Most notably, ABT’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School; NYCB’s School of American Ballet; The National Ballet School of Canada; The Harid Conservatory; North Carolina School for the Arts; The Royal Ballet School (upper and lower divisions); Walnut Hill School for the Arts; Nutmeg Conservatory; Boston Ballet School; San Francisco Ballet School; Bolshoi Ballet Academy; Washington Ballet School; The Pacific Northwest Ballet School; The Kirov Academy; Ballet San Jose; and Alonzo King LINES Ballet Training Program. Her students have also received awards, scholarships and top placement at The Denver Ballet Guild, The Esther Geoffrey’s Young Dancers Ballet Scholarship Competition, and Youth America Grand Prix Scholarship Competition.

Her students have also achieved professional careers, apprenticeships, and scholarships to university programs with Pennsylvania Ballet; Houston Ballet; Ballet West; City Ballet of San Diego; Ballet San Jose; Colorado Ballet; National Ballet of Canada; Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance; Zikr Dance Ensemble; Cocodaco Dance Project; Cirque de Soleil; University of Arizona; and Butler University.

Faculty

Jock Soto, who is half Navajo Indian and half Puerto Rican, was born in Gallup, New Mexico, and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. At the age of five, he began studying ballet with local teachers after seeing a television special featuring Edward Villella in the Rubies section of George Balanchine’s Jewels. Mr. Soto continued his studies at the School of American Ballet (SAB), the official school of New York City Ballet. While at the School, Mr. Soto danced the role of “Luke” in Peter Martins’ The Magic Flute, which was choreographed for the School’s 1981 Workshop performances. That year, George Balanchine invited him to become a member of the Company’s corps de ballet. In June 1984, he was promoted to the rank of soloist, and one year later, he became a principal dancer.

Mr. Soto’s extensive repertory includes featured roles in many of George Balanchine’s ballets, including Agon, Allegro Brillante, Brahms-Schoenberg Quartet (first, third, and fourth movements), Bugaku, Cortege Hongrois, Danses Concertantes, Donizetti Variations, Episodes, Firebird, The Four Temperaments, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker, Glinka Pas de Trois, Rubies from Jewels, Kammermusik No. 2, Liebeslieder Walzer, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Movements for Piano and Orchestra, Mozartiana, Orpheus, Robert Schumann’s Davidsbundlerdanze, Scotch Symphony, La Sonnambula, Stars and Stripes, Stravinsky Violin Concerto, Symphony in C, Symphony in Three Movements, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Union Jack, Vienna Waltzes, and Western Symphony. He has also danced featured roles in a number of ballets by Jerome Robbins, including Afternoon of a Faun, The Cage, Dances at a Gathering, The Four Seasons, Glass Pieces, I’m Old Fashioned, In the Night, Moves, Opus 19/The Dreamer, and West Side Story Suite, as well as Peter Martin’s Barber Violin Concerto, Swan Lake, Symphonic Dances, and Valse Triste, and Robert La Fosse’s Concerto in Five Movements.

Mr. Martins has created principal roles on Mr. Soto in a number of his ballets, including Adams Violin Concerto, Bach Concerto V, Concerto for Two Solo Pianos, Delight of the Muses, Ecstatic Orange, Fearful Symmetries, A Fool for You, Guide to Strange Places, Harmonielehre, The Infernal Machine, Jazz (Six Syncopated Movements), Morgen, A Schubertiad, Sinfonia, Songs of the Auvergne, Them Twos, and Thou Swell. During New York City Ballet’s Spring 1988 American Music Festival, Mr. Soto originated featured roles in Mr. Martins’ Black and White, Robert Weiss’s Archetypes, Laura Dean’s Space, and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux’s Five, and performed in Richard Tanner’s pas de deux Sonatas and Interludes.

In addition, he originated roles in Miriam Mahdaviani’s Urban Dances; Kevin O’Day’s Huoah;
Mr. Tanner’s Ancient Airs and Dances, Operetta Affezionata, and Schoenberg/Wuorinen Variations; Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Chiaroscuro; Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain, Liturgy, Mercurial Manoeuvres, Morphoses, Polyphonia; Shambards, and Slavonic Dances; and Damian Woetzel’s Ebony Concerto.

Mr. Soto has appeared as a guest artist with the Kirov Ballet in Jewels in 2003 and at the Bolshoi Theatre with stars from New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre in 2003. In addition to his guest appearances, Mr. Soto has staged numerous ballets around the world, including works by Balanchine, Robbins, Martin, and Wheeldon, and many more.

Mr. Soto’s television appearances with New York City Ballet include five Live from Lincoln Center broadcasts on PBS: A Choreographer’s Notebook: Stravinsky Piano Ballets by Peter Martins, Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Swan Lake choreographed by Mr. Martins; Ray Charles in Concert with the New York City Ballet, reprising his role in A Fool for You; New York City Ballet’s Diamond Project: Ten Years of New Choreography, dancing in Chiaroscuro, Mercurial Manoeuvres, and Them Twos; and Lincoln Center Celebrates Balanchine 100, dancing in Liebeslieder Walzer. Mr. Soto also appeared in Mr. Bonnefoux’s Five, as part of the Guggenheim Museum’s Works in Process series on PBS. He has appeared on seven episodes of Sesame Street, including three in which he appeared with former NYCB principal dancer Lourdes Lopez. Mr. Soto was a celebrity guest-chef on the TV Food Network’s Talking Food, hosted by Robin Leach, and has appeared as a celebrity judge on Channel 13’s Masterchef. He has also been featured on A&E’s Breakfast with the Arts as Artist of the Week.

In addition to his performing career, Mr. Soto served as a member of SAB’s permanent faculty from 1996 to 2015. Mr. Soto serves as a visiting instructor at the Banff Centre for the Arts for the Indigenous Dance Residency program. He has also been invited to teach at prestigious dance departments in colleges and universities around the country including, Washington University, Oklahoma State, and many others.

Mr. Soto was the recipient of the Casita Maria Award for Hispanics and The First Americans in the Arts Trustee Award. Friends In Deed recognized Mr. Soto for his patronage of AIDS research, and in 2002, the School of American Ballet presented him with the Mae L. Wein Award for Distinguished Service.

During the 2017 New Mexico State legislative session, Mr. Soto received the State’s Certificate of Appreciation from Senator John Pinto for his contribution to the arts.

Mr. Soto resides in Eagle Nest, NM with his husband Luis Fuentes and his pet beagle “Bandit”.

Our Meals, a cookbook written by Mr. Soto and former NYCB principal dancer Heather Watts, was published by Riverhead Books in 1997.

Water Flowing Together, a feature documentary on Mr. Soto was aired on PBS in 2006.
Every Step You Take, Mr. Soto’s critically acclaimed memoir, was published by Harper Collins in 2011.

Guest Artist

Zac Bigbee was born in Taos, New Mexico where he exhibited oil paintings at several galleries, studied Wing Chung style Kung Fu, and competed in slam poetry. His ballet training began with Amber Vasques of New York City Ballet and Megan Yakovich of Colorado Ballet. He went on to study mathematics and Russian language and culture at the University of Arizona and continued his training on scholarship at LINES Ballet, San Francisco Conservatory, and Nederlands Dance Theater. He has also attended the Royal Danish Ballet’s Summer Course, and spent time in Israel researching Gaga at the Suzanne Dallal Center. Zac is also a self-taught cyr wheel practitioner and has trained in aerial acrobatics in Russia under Viktoriya Zhukotzova of the Moscow State Circus. He has danced for Cocodāco in Chicago, Zikr Dance Ensemble in Denver, Canyon Concert Ballet, Colorado Ballet and Convergent Ballet in Phoenix and serves as guest faculty at Tarab Retreat International and Ballet Taos. At the Russian American Foundation, he provides translation services for the Bolshoi Ballet Academy's summer schools. As co-producer on the Inertia and Mechanical Nature: Movement VII projects with Ballet Taos he set original choreography, and contributed to marketing and visual effects while also performing. He also served as film director for project 20/20 - a series of benefit concerts for local arts. As an artist Zac is captivated by the continuously evolving mechanical and neurological perfection of classical ballet. His initial infatuation with classical dance, having now given way to a deeper, smoldering passion, has led him into a search for the essence of classicism. This search is informed by his western education in mathematics as well as visual art and, recently, by exposure to classical traditions, especially movement techniques, foundational to great civilizations from across time. There is something profoundly universal about the human experience that defies its specificity even as it creates it. This is what he seeks to better know and share in his work with students, collaborators, and viewers in hopes that we may all become more deeply human.