Linda Leven

Linda was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a prominent lawyer and lived in the suburbs of the city, leading a rather typical, upper middle class life style until her move to New York City at the age of eighteen. At the age of five, encouraged by her mother, Linda began studying tap, ballet, and acrobatics at a local neighborhood school. But it was the ballet which became the driving force of her life for the next twenty-five years, consuming all of the hours that she did not spend in studying to maintain her almost straight "A" average through high school, college and graduate school. After arriving in New York City, Linda pursued both her ballet studies and the completion of her B.A. degree in mathematics at New York University, followed by an M.A. degree in mathematics, also at New York University. During this period, her time was divided between university classes, ballet classes, and auditions for major national and international ballet companies At age twenty-one, although a