Pure Vaganova Training

Megan Lewis (formerly Schwuchow) was born and raised in San Diego, California, where she began her training at the California Ballet School at age five. In 2013, at age sixteen, she moved to New York City after accepting an invitation to train full-time at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet (GKA). There, she intensively trained under the direct guidance of world-renowned ballerina Gelsey Kirkland and an esteemed international faculty, including Lyubov Fominich, Vera Solovyeva, Nikolai Levitsky, Liudmila Polonskaya, Alexandra Lawlor, and mime and acting coach Pilar Garcia.

During just her first year at the school, Megan was cast in the Jewels Pas de Trios in the Gelsey Kirkland Ballet’s Studio Company production of The Sleeping Beauty. She officially joined the Gelsey Kirkland Ballet studio company in 2015. Throughout her time with the school and company, Megan performed various soloist and corps de ballet roles in classical masterpieces like The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Faust, and Harlequinade, as well as the principal role in Paquita Act III.

In the summer of 2016, Megan attended the Open World Dance Foundation (OWDF) Summer Intensive in New York City. She subsequently accepted an invitation to train full-time under OWDF founders and retired Mariinsky Theatre dancers Ekaterina Shchelkanova and Anton Boytsov. Both mentors graduated from the prestigious Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, studying under Pedagogues who were direct students of Agrippina Vaganova. Through this direct lineage, Megan gained a profound understanding of the Vaganova style. Under their coaching, she performed as the Winter Fairy in Cinderella alongside Misty Copeland, and later danced the role of the Fairy Godmother alongside American Ballet Theatre principals Devon Teuscher and Cory Stearns.

Megan's training went on to take her to St. Petersburg, Russia, where she had the rare honor of learning from legendary ballet artists Irina Kolpakova and Ulyana Lopatkina. Following a career-ending injury in 2019, two surgeries, and rigorous rehabilitation, Megan retired from performing in 2022. She took her passion for the art form and transitioned into education, teaching group classes and private lessons at the Torres Di Dio Ballet Program under Artistic Director Bernadette Torres (current Academy Principal at Colorado Ballet) in San Diego until 2023. Simultaneously, she began pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Sport Psychology both to better understand the science behind the ideal performance and support dancers' mental and physical longevity. As an educator, Megan is deeply dedicated to preserving the integrity of the classical art form by training her students in the purest Vaganova technique.