Meelis Pakri is on the ballet faculty at Harid Conservatory in Florida. He is originally from Estonia and is a graduate of the Vaganova Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia. Following his graduation, Mr. Pakri danced with Estonian National Ballet as a principal dancer and taught partnering and technique classes at the Tallinn State Ballet School. During that time, he also performed as a principal guest artist at the International Ballet Festival in Havana, Cuba; and for the National Theater of Macedonia in Skopje, Yugoslavia. In 1991, at the invitation of then-artistic-director Martin Fredmann, Mr. Pakri joined Colorado Ballet as principal dancer. Over the next ten years, he performed numerous classical and contemporary roles, including Albrecht in Giselle, the title role in George Balanchine’s Apollo, Basilio in Don Quixote, the principal male in Balanchine’s Rubies, and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake. Mr. Pakri was also a frequent guest performer in Estonia and Japan. In 1998, he performed as a guest artist with the Martha Graham Dance Company in the role of the Husbandman in Appalachian Spring at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Mr. Pakri retired from dancing in 2001 and, for the next five years, served as ballet master of Colorado Ballet. In 2005, he received critical acclaim for staging The Sleeping Beauty for the Company. In 2006, Mr. Pakri joined the faculty of The Royal Ballet Upper School in London, England, where he remained until August 2013. During his tenure, Mr. Pakri’s students won prizes at the Youth America Grand Prix and Young British Dancer of the Year competitions. He also served as a guest teacher at Estonian National Ballet and numerous other schools. Prior to joining HARID’s faculty, Mr. Pakri was ballet master at Houston Ballet. He remains active as a guest teacher. He has taught at Ballet Society for the following events: December 2007 Ballet Master Class, December 2008 Ballet Master Class, 2017 Summer Ballet Intensive, 2018 Summer Ballet Intensive, and 2022 Summer Ballet Intensive.