Gabriella Padilla is a professional contemporary ballet dancer and choreographer based in Southern California. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine in the Spring of 2025 with a B.F.A. in Dance Performance and a B.F.A. in Choreography. She was the co-chair of the Department’s Community Student Advising Committee, and worked with the AEA Consulting Firm as an undergraduate representative on their Strategic Planning Committee.  Gabriella is a recipient of the William J. Gillespie Foundation Scholarship and the R. and Walter A. Kohler, Beth L. Koehler Dance Scholarship. During her time at UCI she worked closely with Lar Lubovitch, Vitor Luiz, Molly Lynch, Diane Diefenderfer, Tong Wang, and more. In winter of 2024, she was a featured dancer in George Balanchine’s Serenade staged by Zippora Karz for UCI’s Dance Visions. She also danced in Lar Lubovitch’s Coltrane’s My Favorite Things, & Marimba for Dance Visions 2024 and 2025 respectively. Gabriella had the privilege of staging two of her own contemporary ballet works, Razor’s Edge & In the Mourning, for two different UCI Dance mainstage productions.