Current/Past Guest Teachers & Subs

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TAP (sub)

Kathryn is a Bay Area native who is thrilled to be back on the West Coast after living in New York for the past few years! She grew up studying Tap, Jazz, and Ballet at Dance Arts Center in San Carlos, and later took classes at Steps on Broadway and Broadway Dance Center in NYC. She also holds a national title in Greek Dancing! Kathryn earned her BA in Musical Theatre from California State University, Chico and has gone on to choreograph productions at Aragon High School, San Mateo High School, and for The San Francisco Arts Education Project. When she's not dancing, she's taking improv classes at BATS, practicing her stage combat and puppetry skills, and helping others find their perfect audition songs! Kathryn also teaches youth ballet and teen jazz at Academy of American Dance. For more updates follow @kathryn.aarons on insta or visit kathrynaarons.com

SUSTAINABLE FITNESS

Lisa Allaire, DC opened Allaire Chiropractic and Rehabilitation in 1997.  Her mission is to help people move better and feel better via an evidence-informed blend of manual therapies, rehabilitation/conditioning and healthful self care strategies.  

She independently produced “The Allaire Back Fitness Series” (Seasons 1 and 2).  The series aired on PBS stations throughout the United States.  The series is now streaming on Patreon. 

She continues to teach people how to develop their capacities, cultivate well-being, foster healthy and responsive fitness that supports their activities.  She does this via small group classes or in her office. 

She walks the talk.  As lifelong dancer, with a 12 year immersion in Yoshinkai Aikido, she is now in her 50s and practices what she teaches so that she can keep doing this work, keep dancing, be there for the people she loves, and continue to enjoy life.  

“I’m not anti-aging.  I’m anti-unnecessary decrepitude.  I’m anti-unnecessary medicalization of aging.  We each play the most important role in our health trajectory.”

POP GROOVE

Christine has been dancing since she first joined her high school dance team at 16 years old. Since moving to the Bay Area in 2008, she's continued her dance training in Hip Hop, Jazz, Salsa, DanceHall, House and most recently, Tap. She has performed at the Palace of Fine Arts, the San Francisco Pride Parade (*2018 Salesforce Float backup dancer for Bebe Rexha) and the Prelude Socal Hip Hop Competition. She is also a musical theatre performer & has performed in shows with Broadway by the Bay, South Bay Musical Theatre and Hillbarn Theatre. Currently, she is on an adult dance team called 401K Dance, at FullOut Studios in Oakland. She also takes Jazz & Tap classes at Zohar weekly.

JAZZ (sub)

Jen Cuevas has been dancing for over 25 years. She started her formal training in college at California State University, Hayward (now East Bay) in the disciplines of modern, jazz and ballet. It was there that she cultivated her love for musical theatre after being cast in the show Once On This Island. She continued her training at Dance Arts Center with Berle Davis and DanceAttack-Los Gatos. Following a short break for the birth of her son, she returned to dance with Daynee Lai-Krauss and Vivian Sam at Zohar Dance Company. Jen has performed with several performing companies and has directed and choreographed several musical plays throughout the Bay Area. Her main focus is musical theater and the Luigi style of jazz.

MODERN, CONTEMPORARY (sub)

Jordan holds a BA in Dance Performance & Choreography from Hope College in Holland, MI, where she studied across dance styles with department founder Maxine Debruyn (1927-2020), Matthew Farmer, Dr. Linda Graham, Steven Iannacone, Anne-René Petrarca, Julie Powell, Sharon Wong, and others. She began teaching early on in her dance career, while performing with the Ballet 5:8 School of the Arts Company in Chicago, IL. She taught, choreographed, performed and directed during her time at Hope College, with an emphasis in ballet and modern techniques. Jordan has lived in the Bay Area for the past decade, where she has taught at Dance Connections Palo Alto, performed and taught with LiV Dance Collective in San Jose, and created dance programming for a local nonprofit’s summer camps. Jordan imbues her teaching with a deep joy, and a belief in the power of dance to heal, connect, and ground us.

LUIGI JAZZ TECHNIQUE

Joey has trained with the world-famous Luigi of New York City, at Luigi’s Jazz Centre. Joey is currently the program creator for the new innovation of Luigi’s Jazz technique, Jazz Dance Legacy. Joey has created the Luigi jazz technique teacher certification program launched in July 2019.  Joey also was on full scholarship at Joffrey Ballet in New York City. Mr. Doucette has taught and choreographed throughout the USA, Mexico, Europe, Italy, France, Romania, Latvia, Ukraine, Korea, Portugal, and more. Joey has been a guest teacher at the University of Mexico, UCSD San Diego and at the Virginia School of the Arts under the direction of Petrus Bosman. Plus, he has taught and choreographed a variety of jazz ballets for the Alabama School of Fine Arts (ASFA). Joey just recently taught at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School, where he taught jazz to the pre-professional division students. Known as an energetic and stylized teacher/choreographer, he has enjoyed teaching all levels from 8 yrs of age to professionals. As a former studio owner as well, in Mexico City, Joey understands the needs of studio owners, teachers in the studio environment. Joey has had extensive experience in all aspects of the dance business, both in onstage and backstage.  

He has written the Official Luigi Jazz technique teacher certification program. Joey is now teaching this program online at Jazzdancelegacy.com. Along with The Luigi teacher certification Joey has also reached out to other various Jazz techniques and is in the process of creating a certification program with them as well. 

BALLET (sub)

Karina Eimon is from the Bay Area and trained with Ayako School of Ballet. Under the tutelage of Ayako Takahashi, she placed in the top three of YAGP SF for five consecutive years. In 2014 during her senior year of high school, she was invited to compete in the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi, where she was offered a trainee contract with Ballet Memphis. From there, she joined Milwaukee Ballet II then danced with Colorado Ballet. She joined Oakland Ballet in 2019 and has since performed works by Graham Lustig such as Jangala, Luna Mexicana, and Nutcracker. She is a ballet teacher and certified GYROTONIC® instructor, and is very passionate about sharing her love of dance and movement.

CONTEMPORARY, BALLET, JAZZ (sub)

Adrienne specializes in modern and contemporary movement - emphasizing speed, efficiency, and an aggressive spatial dynamic that supports a more advanced artistic sensibility. Contemporary fundamentals, including the use of weight and thoughtful attention to transitions result in a quality of movement that enhances all dance styles and disciplines, as well as cultivating versatility and joyful expression.

Adrienne is a former Hubbard Street Dance Chicago company member, having performed works by such renowned choreographers as Twyla Tharp, David Parsons, Margot Sappington, Daniel Ezralow, Bob Fosse and Lynn Taylor Corbett. Adrienne has taught ballet technique, modern and contemporary classes at Lou Conte Dance Studio, STEPS-NY, and Stanley Holden Dance Center, as well as heading the HSDC Master Class Series on tour. She has appeared in numerous film and television projects, and has most recently performed with Garrett/Moulton Productions, Dance Continuum SF, and Deyo Dance. Ms. Foley is a member of Actors Equity and SAG-AFTRA.

BALLET (sub)

Tracy Fuller is originally from Denver, Colorado and has been dancing professionally for ten years. She trained at Boston Ballet and Colorado Ballet and began her career in Colorado Ballet’s Studio Company. In her time with the company she had the opportunity to perform in George Balanchine’s Serenade, Swan Lake and Septime Weber’s Alice in Wonderland among many others. During the Pandemic she co-founded Fermata Ballet Collective based in Eugene, Oregon. Tracy joined San Jose Dance Theater in 2020. While at SJDT she has had the opportunity to perform as Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker and many new works by Michael Pappalardo, Mark Foehringer and Linda Hurkmans. She has also had the opportunity to perform with Opera San Jose in Dido and Aeneas and West Side Story. She is currently freelancing in the Bay Area and working with many companies like Peninsula Ballet Theater & Mark Foehringer Dance Project San Francisco. In addition to dancing she teaches weekly at Los Gatos Ballet ages 4 to adult!

BALLET, CONTEMPORARY

Emily is originally from Marietta, GA and received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Alabama. She performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and the Young Choreographers Festival, and her own choreography was showcased at the Alabama Dance Festival. Emily set sail with Royal Caribbean Cruise Line as a Production Cast Dancer aboard the Vision of the Seas. She was a member of the New Ballet Studio Company, as well as a faculty member at the school. Most recently, Emily joined the cast of South Bay Musical Theatre’s Singin’ in the Rain for her musical theatre debut! 

MODERN (sub)

TRACEY began ballet lessons as a little girl and performed through high school with the State Ballet of Rhode Island.  She discovered modern dance at Smith College, where she received a BA in Dance.  While living in Boston she performed the work of a variety of choreographers, and has been choreographing and performing with High Release Dance since arriving in the Bay Area in 2010.  Recently she has had fun introducing ballet to elementary school kids in rural Kenya and India.  

ACTING/Vocal Technique/Voice Coach

Chris Vettel - A performer and teacher for over thirty-five years, Chris grew up in the shadow of New York City, on the north shore of Long Island, in the small village of Oyster Bay. Receiving his master’s degree from Manhattan School of Music in Vocal Performance, he sang for four seasons with the Opera Company of Boston, its touring branch, Opera New England, and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra (in the final concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein). His musical theater performing credits include National Broadway Tours (Annie, Sunset Boulevard), the Radio City Christmas Spectacular (Santa), Off-Broadway (Cactus Flower, Wanda’s World), at many regional theatres across the U.S. (Papermill Playhouse, Goodspeed Musicals, Stages St. Louis, etc.) and in the Bay Area (TheatreWorks, San Jose Rep, Berkeley Rep, San Jose Stage, etc.) As a teacher, he has been a private voice instructor for forty years, was on the faculty of the State University of New York, taught musical theatre workshop for ACT’s ‘Young Conservatory’ and has, for the past eight years, taught in the music department at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill.

CONTEMPORARY

Adriee began dancing at age 4 thanks to her parents starting her off in pre-school ballet. From there she took off dancing in full stride throughout her grade school years performing and choreographing jazz, lyrical, and contemporary pieces. Next she leaped over to San Diego to earn her bachelor's degrees in Dance and Biology (Separate degrees. However, wouldn't it be such an interesting combined major?) at UC San Diego while dancing with Ascension Hip Hop and Finesse Dance Company. She took a break from dance to earn her dental degree in Detroit but soon resumed teaching while completing her dental residency in Oklahoma City. Adriee loves how dance brings people of all backgrounds together and she strives to create a welcoming space for all dancers of all levels.

MUSICAL THEATRE DANCE, TAP

Peli Woods is a recent graduate from The Boston Conservatory (BoCo) in Musical Theater. She performed in Regional theaters: Once on the Island, Hairspray. Soon after graduating from BoCo, she was cast in Frozen, The Musical. She performs in the ensemble and understudies for Bulda. Peli is a triple threat who loves to dance and is excited to teach this class. Zohar looks forward to having Peli offer her professional experience in musical theater.