Meet Our Staff

Ruthena has been the sole owner of Grand Jeté since she opened the store in 1983. She began ballet when she was seven, studying at the Andahazy School of Classical Ballet in St. Paul, MN through high school and at the Minnesota Dance Theater and School in Minneapolis following her graduation from college. She performed in MDT’s Nutcracker for a number of years and also performed with Jo Savino and the Classical Ballet Academy in ballets such as Giselle, Coppelia, and Firebird. Ruthena has continued to take regular ballet classes twice a week at Saint Paul Ballet and has been a guest performer with Ballet Minnesota. She is an avid supporter of the dancers who come to Grand Jeté, getting to know many of them as they shop at the store and attending many performances for dance schools and companies in the Twin Cities area each year.  Additionally, Ruthena has been an active board member for the MN Retailers Association for ten years. In July of 2014, Ruthena received the honor of being chosen as one of five finalists in America’s Retail Champions program at the National Retail Federation Advocacy Summit in Washington D.C.  

Grace began dancing when she was four at Johnny Cavelle Dance Studio in South Dakota.  She studied ballet, tap, jazz, character, celtic and pointe and passed her Cecchetti exams through Grade IV.  Grace earned her bachelor’s degree in Piano Performance with a Spanish minor and teaches piano and performs professionally in the Twin Cities.  In 2011, Grace began training as a competitive ballroom dancer at Cinema Ballroom in St. Paul, MN.  She competed successfully in both amateur and pro/am partnerships locally and nationally before accepting a pro partnership and pursuing a career as an instructor at Cinema Ballroom.  Grace now teaches full time at Cinema and competes both professionally and with her students across the United States.  Grace has been at Grand Jeté since 2011 and is the ballroom and marketing manager as well as an administrative assistant.