Amanda LaSalle began her dance training with her Mother, Pauline Sundsmo Geyer, in Wabash, Indiana, and with John Neff at the Fort Wayne Ballet. During her undergraduate years, Mrs. LaSalle spent two years at Indiana University and two years at Butler University. While pursuing a BA in Language Arts and a secondary teaching license, she was able to take daily ballet technique classes at both colleges.

 

After graduating Cum Laude from Butler, Mrs. LaSalle taught 7th grade English while her husband was in medical school. After a stint in the Army (Viet Nam era) and residency in orthopedics, her husband moved the family to Fort Wayne where Mrs. LaSalle taught for 30 years at Fort Wayne Ballet and directed a magnet school ballet program at Weisser Park School. During those years Mrs. LaSalle learned The Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) children's syllabus and took the  Vaganova teaching course at Western State University with Jurgen Shneider.

 

Mrs. LaSalle and her husband have four children: Chris, Phil, Sarah and David.

 

Mrs. LaSalle (like her mother before her) has taught ballet to generations of students in Northeast Indiana. Countless dancers in the Fort Wayne area list her as their first ballet teacher. Project Ballet is so privileged that Mrs. LaSalle has been a member of the Project Ballet faculty for fourteen years. Mrs. LaSalle says she absolutely loves working at Project Ballet and that the PB students "are the greatest".