Mary Kathryn Siejak
Mary Kathryn Siejak (Ballet) began her classical training at the Degnan Ballet Center in 1995. The Hanover Township native studied under Peter Degnan and Kristin Degnan Boonin, and became a member of the school’s performing company, Ballet Northeast, in 2004. In the summer of 2006, Ms. Siejak was invited to attend the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts in Erie. Since then, she has been featured in numerous principal roles in the company’s various productions. Some of them include the leading role in Ballet Northeast’s 2013 rendition of Cinderella, ‘Klara,’ ‘the Ice Princess,’ and ‘the Mouse King,’ in The Nutcracker, ‘Princess Tsarevna’ in The Firebird, and soloist roles in classical works such as Les Sylphides, as well as in the company’s original repertoire, namely Joplin and Etudes. During her studies at the Degnan Ballet Center, she has taken master classes under guest instructors including Barbara Weisberger, and has worked with guest artists Nikolai Morschakov and Evgeny Truposkiadi.
While attending Wilkes University, Ms. Siejak was an active member of its collegiate dance department. Here she continued her training under Ms. Degnan Boonin, as well as with dance department faculty members Kris Cross and Lynne Mariani.
Ms. Siejak earned her dual certification in Elementary and Special Education, with Reading Content and Dance minors, in the spring of 2012. She currently teaches at Good Shepherd Academy in Kingston, as a special education teacher in their Individualized Instruction program. In 2018, she participated in the Impact: Leadership in Education program, through Leadership Wilkes-Barre, and in the spring of 2019, Ms. Siejak was a recipient of The Times Leader Media Group’s Distinctive Women’s Award.