NCBT Artists
Gabriella Padilla
Choreographer
Gabriella is a professional 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. 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. Gabriella is currently a company artist with Little Women Ballet and a resident choreographer for New Classics Ballet Theatre.
Katie O’Gara
Choreographer
Katie O’Gara is a Southern California–born ballet artist and co-founder of New Classics Ballet Theatre. With nearly two decades of training and performance experience, she has developed a strong technical foundation and a deep passion for narrative ballet and collaborative art forms. She trained at Pasadena Civic Ballet and attended the California School of the Arts – San Gabriel Valley as a ballet and contemporary dance conservatory member. She also trained at summer intensives with The Rock School for Dance Education, American Ballet Theatre, and the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, and was a Top 24 finalist in the Senior Women’s Classical Division at Youth America Grand Prix Los Angeles.
Katie earned a B.A. in Dance and a B.S. in Neurobiology from the University of California, Irvine, where her repertoire included Myrtha in Giselle, Russian Girl in Serenade, a soloist role in Paquita, and original works by Molly Lynch, Tong Wang, and Vitor Luiz de Souza Santos. Her choreographic experience began at CSArts and continued at UC Irvine, where she developed a passion for creating original works. A classically trained flutist, Katie enjoys bringing different art forms together and creating new works through collaboration. Katie also teaches ballet and tap at Pasadena Civic Ballet and works as a veterinary assistant, combining her love for animals, science, and service.
Taesung Hwang
Composer
Taesung Hwang is an art and technology enthusiast with a B.A. in Music and a B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering from UC Irvine. He previously scored short-film projects, served as the sound designer for a dance choreography BFA thesis project, and performed with the UCI Symphony Orchestra. For his B.A. project, Taesung invented a new electromagnetic musical instrument and was the winner of E-SONIC, a competition hosted in collaboration with the Pacific Symphony. Beyond musical pursuits, Taesung was the lighting programmer for Dance Escape 2024 and served as an executive board member for Bare Bones Dance Theater where he has remained involved as the photographer for their recent annual showcases. Taesung currently works as a software engineer for Amazon Web Services in Seattle, WA where he also plays clarinet, percussion, and oboe with the Amazon Symphony Orchestra.