Ballet Is Our Passion

School History

ICSB’s origins can be traced back to its founder and Artistic Director, Georné Aucoin, and her earliest teaching years in Middle Georgia — where she first encountered a truth that would shape the trajectory of her life’s work: there were young dancers with authentic potential, yet no environment equipped to cultivate it.

The region had talent, curiosity, and an appetite for serious study — what it lacked was a pathway.

When Georné first began teaching in the area, she inherited a teen ballet class: a group of students who attended once or twice a week and had never been taught foundational technique with clarity. They were eager and bright, but they had never been introduced to the discipline or structure of classical work. No one had shown them what was truly possible.

They did not yet know how to organize their bodies, shape their arms, or move through basic barre work with intention. Instead of accepting that as their ceiling, Georné did what would later become her hallmark: she quietly took everything apart and rebuilt it.

She stripped the material back to the basics, made the choreography simple, insisted on unified arms and heads, and focused on clean positions and musical clarity. By the end of the year, that unassuming teen class — one that had never been considered “advanced” — looked surprisingly cohesive, refined, and classical. The students felt the difference. They understood, many for the first time, what it meant to be taken seriously.

That experience revealed something important: there were dancers in the region with real potential, but they needed more than the existing structures could offer. Many younger dancers with genuine interest and promise often found themselves overshadowed — not because of their ability, but because traditional structures prioritized age and seniority. Opportunities were frequently determined by long-standing systems rather than individual readiness or demonstrated commitment. Georné recognized that this approach did not serve every dancer equally, and she chose to build a model that aligned opportunity with potential, discipline, and actual work.

To meet that need, Georné created International City Ballet, a small youth company named after Warner Robins’ nickname, “The International City.” Rehearsals were held on weekends, layered on top of students’ regular classes, and focused on more serious training and performance. The company performed at community events and arts festivals, including original ballets with newly composed scores. For many of these young dancers, it was the first time they experienced being coached like emerging professionals and their first glimpse of classical training approached with rigor, detail, and accountability.

Families began commuting from nearby towns. The progress was undeniable. It became clear that to teach these dancers in the way they deserved — with consistency, discipline, and daily structure — she would need a school built intentionally around those values.

When Georné was later invited to consider purchasing the studio where she taught, it prompted an important reflection. She held deep respect for its founder and appreciated the confidence that the offer represented. However, taking ownership of an established recreational school would have meant sustaining a model designed to serve a broad community rather than the highly focused classical environment she felt certain some dancers needed.

She recognized that a different type of program — one built intentionally for rigorous, long-term classical training — would require its own structure, expectations, and curriculum. With that clarity, she made the thoughtful decision to create something entirely new.

Drawing on the foundation of the youth company, the commitment of families seeking more serious work, and a growing reputation for disciplined, attentive instruction, she opened the International City School of Ballet in 2004. Many of her students chose to follow her into the new program, not because it was the simplest path, but because they recognized that the kind of training they were searching for was finally being built with purpose.

As ICSB’s dancers began earning recognition at major international ballet competitions, the school’s reputation expanded rapidly. Families from across the country — and increasingly from abroad — sought out the caliber of training emerging from this small program in Middle Georgia.

During this period, Musashi Alvarez joined the artistic leadership, contributing choreography and additional instructional depth. His work complemented the strong foundation Georné had already built, broadening the school’s creative range and reinforcing its commitment to rigorous, detail-driven classical training.

In 2014, ICSB relocated to Smyrna, Georgia, moving into bright, expansive studios designed to support the school’s evolving scale while preserving its intentionally small-program model. The philosophy remained constant; the surroundings evolved to support it.

A second relocation in 2019 brought the school to its current Marietta facility, maintaining the proximity of the original metro-Atlanta community while expanding into a larger space designed to accommodate the increasing demand for intensive, detail-driven training. The core values stayed the same — the environment simply rose to meet them.

ICSB began as a small, focused program for a handful of dedicated young dancers who wanted to work seriously and grow with intention. Over the years, that original impulse — to take every dancer’s development personally, accurately, and honestly — has remained unchanged. The school’s identity still carries the spirit of those early days: a belief that talent flourishes when it meets structure, clarity, and a teacher who refuses to settle for good enough.

Mission Statement

Our mission is simple and uncompromising:
to cultivate dancers with the clarity, discipline, and depth required to thrive in the world of classical ballet — and in life.

ICSB provides rigorous, methodical training grounded in honesty, responsibility, and personal ownership. We value consistency, seriousness of purpose, and a genuine love of the work. Through this training, dancers learn to:

• build strong classical foundations
• think critically about their technique
• develop artistic intelligence rather than imitation
• work with maturity, humility, and discipline
• understand that excellence is a daily practice, not an event

We do not train dancers to chase titles — we train them to become artists capable of sustaining long careers, leading with integrity, and carrying the lessons of this discipline into every part of their lives.

Whether our students continue into professional companies, conservatories, universities, or entirely different fields, they leave ICSB with a mindset shaped by clarity, rigor, and deep personal accountability.

This is the purpose of ICSB. And it has not changed since the beginning.

Over the years of its existence, ICSB has found three specific qualities to preserve this: self-motivation, professionalism, and trust. Faculty, students, and parents alike are encouraged to embody these three pillars to create the most seamless experience in ballet education.

SELF-MOTIVATION

A dancer's hard work today is an investment in their tomorrow. Dancers who profoundly appreciate and understand the "why" behind why they dance are much more likely to feel engaged and empowered in what they do. It is your mission statement, the real reason you get up in the morning and muster the inner strength necessary to overcome the obstacles of the day. At the end of the day, many can work hard for a few moments, and few can do so for an entire career. It all comes down to how badly you want something and how hard you are willing to work to get it.

To achieve proficiency in this intricate art form, students must exert themselves, physically and intellectually, in refining their technique and artistry. Dancers must devote many hours to the training, developing a sense of discipline and a strong work ethic along the way. ICSB encourages patience and self-mastery in all of our daily and nightly classes. ICSB expects a focused mindset when students enter the studio for class. Students learn executive functioning skills to boost productivity; the benefits of the intense training become evident in their schooling and academics.

PROFESSIONALISM

We value professionalism as a fundamental and critical characteristic for each student's success and personal growth. Commitment requires a certain level of maturity, and young dancers must "grow up" faster than normal children. New students at ICSB will quickly realize that the level of hard work one must put into their study is a prerequisite and necessary adjustment to the demands of the professional field. The ICSB faculty encourages students to work as a corps de ballet and develop a strong collective identity to make the most of their training. To be truly successful, students must understand the value of independence and accountability in their work while maintaining the utmost respect for their instructors and peers. By incorporating this into the student's behavior, ICSB can send students out into the world fully confident that they will represent themselves with dignity, humility, and intelligence.

Adaptability becomes key in becoming an astute learner as information may come in a variety of forms; flexibility of the mind and the body are vital to success in this demanding environment where dancers may need to work with directors and choreographers of various temperaments. Students learn universally applicable tools to succeed in every career, whether working in an office or a theater. Dancers learn to be resilient and utilize criticism in all its forms to attain excellence.

TRUST

The training at ICSB is hard work; it is critical to trust in the work, the instructors, and, most importantly, oneself to maximize results. It is the most crucial bonding agent that brings cohesiveness at the culmination of training. It creates long-lasting relationships that will prove invaluable in the dance profession. We offer students a dance education that teaches them to challenge their limits by focusing on the task and identifying the positive aspects of the process. This approach motivates students to discover the meaning behind their work and visualize their study as a personal challenge to satisfy their intellectual curiosity, learn new skills, and thoroughly enjoy every aspect of dance. It is part of the school’s academic culture to create a hunger for learning that empowers students to find their paths to success.

The ICSB Student

At ICSB, dance is about connecting with pleasure, listening to your body, and building awareness of sensations. It’s about personal, investigative research that encourages using all of the senses to become aware of your body. Attention to gravity, texture, tension, and dimensionality are important. It requires serious focus, but also encourages laughter, silliness, and release. Magnetic alertness, fluidity, and authenticity in movement is important too. Use of breath, eyes and playfulness are particularly noticeable and desired.

It could be about the main character’s struggle; or about love, loss, sacrifice, death, pleasure, pain or healing. Its about making the audience have their own story. Sometimes it is a sublime combination of the weird and the interesting. We’ve always been intrigued about stretching the boundaries and constantly challenging the limit. Its not literal, but more a mental block. Its about getting out of that block and conquering the stage and your audience.

We are not interested in how people move, but in what moves them.