Cherish Garcia
Academy One Director
Cherish started her ballet training at the age of 7 with Felicitas Radaic. She also trained with Malu Rivera, Karan Rowe, Tony Fabella, Noordin Jumalon, and William Morgan. In New York City, she took classes with Melissa Hayden in 1981. In 1983, she studied under Madame Nina Popova at the Newbert Ballet Institute at Carnegie Hall. In the University of the Philippines’ College of Music Dance Program, she trained under Sonia Domingo, Basilio Esteban Villaruz, and Agnes Locsin. She performed here and abroad while with the UP Dance Company and she also performed with Philippine Ballet Theater.
Cherish earned her dance degree in 1992 from the UP College of Music. She has been teaching since she was 16 years old and has been entering students for RAD examinations since 1993 as a pre-registered teacher of RAD London. In 1995, she passed the RAD teaching program with Distinction and has been fully registered teacher with the Royal Academy of Dance ever since.
Cherish is also a registered teacher of Ballet Conservatoire (Formerly Australian Conservatoire of Ballet) and has been entering students for the ACB exams since the year 2000.
In 2005, she was asked to be the Practical Teaching Supervisor and the Tutor for the RAD Teaching Certificate for ballet teaching studies in the region. (Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines).
In 2009 she was able to observe classes at the Beijing Dance Academy on a grant by the National Ballet Syllabus and in 2015 and 2016 she was able to observe classes at The Royal Ballet School in White Lodge and Covent Garden as part of their teacher observation program.
In 2019 she became a registered teacher of Progressing Ballet Technique. Currently, Cherish is a trainee Affiliate Teacher of The Royal Ballet School.
Pamela Asper-Espejo
Pamela Asper- Espejo started her classical training under the strict tutelage of Vella C. Damian. In 1995, she became one of the founding members of Ballet Manila.
Adept at both lyrical and bravura roles, Pamela received ovations for her debut as the playful Amour in Don Quixote, dancing with the Buryat State Academic Ballet during Ballet Manila’s Russian Tour in 1995. She then went on to complete the first round of the 1997 International Ballet Competition for the Asia- Pacific in Tokyo.
Throughout her dancing career, she went through several classes taught by ballet masters and coaches Viktor Saveliev, Sergei Vikov, Ira Sitnikova, Tatiana, Udalenkova, and the People’s Artist Surguei Vikulov. She also completed the Annual Ballet Manila Master Class conducted by Tatiana Udalenkova of the Academy of Russian Ballet and the People’s Artist of Russia Surguei Vikulov.
She was a faculty member of the CCP Dance School, and was a guest teacher in ARTS in the City, the satellite school of Ballet Philippines and in Lisa Macuja School of Ballet. In 2004, she attended the seminar for the Australian Conservatoire of Ballet. She is also a certified teacher of Progressing Ballet Technique.

Pamela has been coaching in some local competitions and international ballet competitons such as Asian Grand Prix, Prix de Laussane and this years Youth America Grand Prix.
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She is a regular teacher at Academy One Music and Dance Center and currently a guest teacher in STEPS.
Jeffrey Espejo
Jeffrey started his classical training at the age of 15. As a scholar of Osias Barroso and Lisa Macuja, he competed in the First International Ballet and Modern Dance Competition in Tokyo in 1997.
Jeffrey was a faculty member of Ballet Manila School And the CCP Dance School. He also worked with Ballet Philippines as a guest Ballet Master and a guest choreographer. His body of work includes Jazzanova (from All that Jazz), Double Take’s Side by side with Bam Damian, and Latin Heat.
He was invited by STEPS to be the head coach in the Asian Grand Prix Competition in Hong Kong 2012-2015 and World Ballet Competition in Orlando Forida USA 2015.He was also the head coach for Academy One Music and Dance Center in Asian Grand Prix in HongKong 2016 and Prix de Laussane in Switzerland 2017.
Jeffrey is a regular faculty member at STEPS Dance Studio handling the Inter-Advance Open classes. He is also a regular faculty member of Academy One.
Ann Roann Donnie Guarin
Donnie started dancing at the age of 7. In 1989, she joined Dance Theater Philippines as scholar under the tutelage of Felicitas “Tita” Radaic and Sonia Domingo. In 1990, she joined the Philippine Ballet Theater, where she trained under the watchful eyes of both local and foreign masters.
She has performed the roles of Jean Paul Comelins’ “Sonata a tre”, “ Cinderella”, “ Daughters of Mourning”, and “Raymonda”. She danced in Michael Chernov and Gelsey Kirkland’s “Nutcracker” as the Driad in the second act , and in various other PBT Productions. With PBT, she has participated in tours of Japan , Mexico, United States, Singapore, Madrid, Morocco, and Canada.
In 2003 and 2004, she took her Royal Academy Of Dance vocational Intermediate and Advance 1 examinations and received a rating of Distinction. In 2011, she took the course for the new Royal Academy of Dance Pre- Primary and Primary Syllabus.
Donnie also teaches at International School Manila and is part of Academy One’s regular faculty.