Mario Nugara founded the City of Angels Ballet School in January of 1993. Nugara received his formal training on scholarship at George Balanchine’s School of American Ballet in New York. Nugara understood that opportunity and commitment to proper training are key components in creating powerful artists.

Recognizing the lack of affordable after-school arts programs, Nugara formed the City of Angels Ballet School, which offered a program of “no cost” ballet training to a small group of elementary school students from the Pico-Union district in the heart of Los Angeles’ Latino community.  During this time, local schools and communities lacked the funding necessary to sustain arts and after-school intervention programs.  Today the program serves a diverse ethnic mix of 7-18 year old boys and girls, drawn from communities surrounding Los Angeles. Since its creation the City of Angels Ballet School has partnered with 35 schools to educate over 30,000 children on the subject of dance. More than 1,000 additional children have received scholarships and attended classes offered by the program.

98% of the students enrolled in the City of Angels Ballet School program are on full scholarship. The City of Angels Ballet School is the only not-for-profit ballet school in Los Angeles focused exclusively on developing and producing exceptional ballet dancers.