Faculty
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Annette Lago - Ballet, Jazz, Lyrical, Combo
Annette is the founder and director of Dance Arts, and has been teaching Jazz, Ballet, Lyrical, and Hip Hop to students of all age and ability levels for the past 13 years. Annette's philosophy is that the best teachers are always students themselves: She holds a BFA in Dance from the University of Washington and continues to take regular classes as well as attend conventions and workshops such as Dance Educators of America, Co. Dance, LA Dance Force, and Tremaine. Annette also attended the Pacific Northwest Ballet's teacher training program for two consecutive summers where she was exposed to the PNB syllabus, training, and teaching methodologies.
In 1999, Annette founded the Dance Arts Competition Team. The team performs her choreography at local schools, retirement homes and festivals such as the Puyallup Fair, Maple Valley Days and Renton River Days. The team has won numerous awards at regional dance competitions including "Best Presentation", "Best use of Props", and "Sensational Staging". Today the team has expanded to include a non-competitive performing group in addition to the competitive team. Annette has also choreographed for the Miss Auburn and Miss Covington pageants.
Ms. Lago's favorite thing about teaching dance is all of the fun and wonderful students she gets to meet. |
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April Torneby - Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Lyrical, Hip-Hop
April is in her senior year at Cornish College of the Arts where she is working towards her Bachelor of Arts in Dance with a focus on choreography. Her studies also include anatomy, kinesiology, ballet, modern, jazz, teaching methodologies and music theory to name a few. While at Cornish, April has had the opportunity to choreograph and perform in several works including the BFA concert, New Moves, and Terpsichore's Landing.
April is a former student of Dance Arts where her pre collegiate training included ballet, modern, jazz, hip hop, and Lyrical. April was also a member of the Dance Arts competition team for 4 years, as well as a member of the Tahoma High School Dance Team for three years. She served as Junior Captain in 2004/2005 and Captain in 2005/2006. April was awarded top dancer and received a scholarship in 2005 from Elite Dance Camp held in Seattle, Washington.
April inspires students with her fun and encouraging teaching style, and her passion for anatomy and kinesiology is contagious. |
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Sophia Tolentino - Musical Theater, Jazz, Hip hop
Sophia is a graduate from Seattle University with a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Performing and a Masters in Teaching. For the past seven years she has taken part in many musical theatre productions as an actress as well as director and choreographer. Within these experiences Sophia has had the opportunity to teach many different dance styles to a variety of age levels and abilities. Sophia's training includes jazz, ballet, hip hop, swing, and theatre jazz.
Ms. Tolentino has beenteaching school for the past four years with most of her experience at the kindergarten level. She brings that same energy, creativeness, and patience into her dance classes. Sophia's love for children shows in her caring and nurturing manner toward everyone she works with. Sophia is excited to be a part of the staff at Dance Arts, and shares her passion for performing with all her students. |
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Xaviera Hodge-Vandermay - Ballet, Jazz, Lyrical, Hip-Hop
Xaviera first found her love of dance at age five. The majority of her dance schooling was completed at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and Washington Academy of Performing Arts. She also studied on scholarship at Gyrotonic Seattle, Spectrum Dance Theater, Giordano Dance Center and Joel Hall Dance Center.
Ms. Hodge-Vandermay has been teaching professionally since 2001. She loves instructing all ages in jazz, lyrical, ballet, ballroom, contemporary, creative movement and hip-hop. Her pursuits also include choreography and she directed her own pre-professional contemporary company, LOA: Dance Project for the last 5 years. Her choreography has received many awards and honors including Innovation in Choreography awarded in 2006 by Dance Educators of America.
Xaviera toured and performed professionally in the U.S. and Mexico with Spectrum Dance Theater (2000-03) under the direction of Donald Byrd and former directors Dale A Merrill and Wade Madsen. She has also performed in the 2003 Seattle Neil Young Engagement and with premier hip-hop dance company Street Level Dance. During her four year stint in Chicago she had the pleasure of performing with GI Alliance and independent choreographer Duwane Pendarvis. She also started her best role, being a mama, in Chicago and looks forward to introducing her son to the Pacific Northwest! |
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Zoey Davies - Jazz, Lyrical, and Hip-Hop
Zoey has been dancing on competitive teams since she was 10 years old, and is currently part of one of the most prestigious hip-hop companies in the Pacific Northwest, Phyzikal Graffi-T Elite. Zoey started her training at Dance Arts, and was a part of the competing team for 5 years. At the age of 15 she began her training at Elizabeth's Dance Dimensions studying under award winning choreographers such as; Elizabeth Lanning, Eden Stephens, Jaret Hughes, Christina Woodard, and Brooke Lipton. During her competition years Zoey won many scholarships, and awards at Hollywood Connection, Dance Educators of America, International Dance Challenge, and Monsters of Hip-hop. She is currently training at Westlake Dance Center, and the Connection Performing Arts Center where she excels in hip-hop, as well as contemporary, lyrical, and jazz.
Davies recently returned from China where she was part of the Jay Chou World Tour, performing for audiences of over 70,000 people. Jay Chou is the biggest star in China/Japan, and is the Asian equivalent to Justin Timberlake. Zoey has also performed in Unrated IV, V, VI, and Physical Poetry etc. Now that Zoey is back in the Seattle area she continues to dance for Kolanie Marks on Phyzikal Graffi-T Elite, and is excited about sharing her passion for dance with students of all ages. |
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Paige Ballard - Creative Movement and Parent-Child
Paige began dancing at age three and playing the piano at age 5. She continued receiving instruction and performing in both until 1994. Her professional career led her to receive a BS degree in Forest Recreation Resource Management from Utah State University, however, she has always loved dance. Now that she has children of her own, she has found it incredibly rewarding to once again involve herself in sharing the arts with young children and loves providing an environment where parents and children can do playful work to learn, have fun, and create memories.
Professionally trained and certified by Kindermusik International, Paige has been teaching creative movement, music, and dance to young children in the greater Kent and Maple Valley areas since 2006. Most recently, she completed the her first year of teaching creative dance at "Poetry of the Foot". She loves young children and enjoys not only teaching them, but watching them create and use their imagination. She strives to create a fun, positive, and developmentally appropriate atmosphere where both parents and children can learn and enjoy dancing together. |
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Elizabeth Parr - Ballet and Point
Elizabeth began her dance training at age four in Fairbanks, Alaska at the North Star Ballet School. She has attended summer intensives at American Ballet Theater, Milwaukee Ballet, and Kansas City Ballet. She studied classical ballet exclusively until college where she began her modern dance education. Elizabeth has performed in works by Marie Chong, Olivier Wevers, Jason Ohlberg, Steve Casteel, and Pat Hon.
This May Elizabeth received her BFA in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts. Elizabeth is currently a member of ARC Dance Company in Seattle, Washington. Elizabeth has been performing since age eight and can't imagine her life without it. Her priorities in educating dancers are to impart anatomically sound technique, a possession of artistry, and a drive to be constantly improving and challenging the limits. Elizabeth says she teaches because it brings her joy to give knowledge to others and see them improve and grow. |
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Ella Howell - Ballet
Ella has an extensive background in modern, jazz, musical theatre, character, pas de deux, pointe, mime, choreography, and improvisation. She received her training from the International School of Classical Ballet (ISCB), under Vera Altunina, Eva Stone, Jerry Tassin, Jill Adomias, Francois Serrey Berg, Stanko Milov and Stephanie Seland. Ella also attended Pedagogy courses where she studied the Vaganova Syllabus, and was promoted to assistant teacher under director, Vera Altunina while at ISCB. Ella received additional training in New York and Washington DC with Joffery Ballet and Universal Ballet Academy.
Ella has danced many roles with International Ballet Theater including Mina, Queen of Darkness, Cupid, Waltz of the Flowers soloist, Mirlitons - Pas de deux, Giselle - Lead Willis, Giselle - friends, Les Sylphides, Little Red Riding Hood, Vampires, Snow, Russian, Chicago, and Le Jazz Hot.
Ella is passionate about infusing technique with artistry and musicality at every level. She loves watching her students improve, understand, and feel the movement as they listen to the music. In addition to teaching dance, Ella is currently attending Green River Community College where she is working towards a degree in the medical field. |
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