08/07/2026
STAFF SPOTLIGHT:
Rachel Prescott, Artistic Director & Owner
A native of Destin, Florida, Rachel Prescott began her classical ballet training at age five with Bernadette Clements Sims, founder of Northwest Florida Ballet, placing her earliest formation within the founding line of classical ballet on the Emerald Coast.
She rose through the school to become a company member of Northwest Florida Ballet, dancing under Ballet Mistress Dorothy Daniels Lister, a former member of the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo who led the Children's Department of the Joffrey Ballet's official school for twenty-five years. Under Miss Dorothy's direction, Rachel performed in The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Giselle, Coppélia, Paquita, Scheherazade, and La Bayadère, among many other classical and contemporary works. Through Lister, her training descends directly from the Ballets Russes tradition that shaped classical dance in the twentieth century.
Admitted to Northwest Florida State College's Collegiate High School, Rachel danced concurrently with the college's dance program under Artistic Director Frances Herron, training with Ulli Dunbar, a former professional dancer with Germany's Frankfurt Ballet.
A notable modeling career with Elite Model Management later carried her to New York City and Los Angeles, where she continued her training at Steps on Broadway, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Westside School of Ballet, and the Alonzo King LINES Dance Center.
Rachel is certified in American Ballet Theatre's National Training Curriculum, Pre-Primary through Level 5. In 2020 she founded studio6twenty5 in Destin and built its program from the ground up: an ABT-curriculum Children's Program for ages 2–12, a large Adult/Open Division, and an Adult Ballet Company, presenting full-length classical repertoire — The Nutcracker, Coppélia, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White — with complete costume wardrobes and sets maintained by the studio. For four consecutive seasons she has self-produced and self-funded The Nutcracker and an annual spring production of rotating classical and original repertoire.
A second-generation steward of the arts in Destin, Rachel is the daughter of architect and ballet dancer Jeffrey Prescott, whose firm, Prescott Architects, designed Northwest Florida Ballet's current home as a pro bono gift to the ballet.
In Rachel, the region's classical lines converge: the founder's line of Bernadette Clements Sims, the Ballets Russes and Joffrey line of Dorothy Daniels Lister, the Frankfurt Ballet line of Ulli Dunbar, and the institutional legacy of Frances Herron — carried forward, daily, at the barre in Destin.
