Julie Janus Walters
Julie is a certified GYROKINESIS® Instructor and GYROTONIC® Apprentice Trainer. Julie’s experience as a former principal dancer with more than 30 years of professional performing expertise has greatly informed her development as a teacher, researcher and somatic practitioner. Julie draws on her extensive knowledge of the moving body to guide each individual in a discovery of their own inner harmony, agility, and increased functional capacity throughout the entire body. Ultimately, July helps to cultivate the body’s innate intelligence in motion, while identifying the pathways to efficient and fluid movement. She is continually exploring the connections between classical ballet and somatic methods, as well as ways to open and expand one’s range of motion by creating space throughout the body. Julie looks forward to guiding individuals of all ages and abilities on a path of finding a fulfilling freedom in the moving body.
A leading Dancer with the Joffrey Ballet for many years, Julie was featured in performances around the world and has appeared on national and international television. She was also a Principal Dancer with Atlanta Ballet and a Principal Guest Artist with the National Ballet of Iceland. Julie is Assistant Professor Emerita of the Practice of Dance at Duke University, and she was an instructor of ballet at UNC-Chapel Hill for 10 years prior to her tenure at Duke.
She was Assistant Director for The Carolina Ballet Summer Intensive since the program’s founding (2007 -January 2016) and helped to develop the successful national and international program. Julie has performed as a Guest Artist with Carolina Ballet in Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. She has been a guest teacher for many professional companies and training organizations including the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, Random Dance Company, Joffrey Ballet School, Princeton Ballet School, North Carolina Dance Theatre School, Chicago National Association of Dance Masters, and Regional Dance America. She currently teaches ballet at the Ballet School of Chapel Hill and has been on faculty since 1998. Julie is a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science.