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The Person Behind the Method

I saw what was missing.
Then I built it.

DANCE EDUCATOR
SPEAKER
AUTHOR

I’ve lived every transformation I teach. My work sits where movement, mental wellness, and personal leadership meet, and I built it from lived experience, not theory.

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The Training

My students start from zero.
My training didn't.

The room I built is for beginners. The teaching inside it comes from seventeen years and some of the most rigorous training in American dance.

ETA Cultural Center

Southside of Chicago, where it began

The Chicago Academy of Arts

under Anna Paskevska & Randy Duncan

The Ailey School

additional training

Ballet Chicago

additional training

Jeraldyne’s School of Dance

additional training

Deeply Rooted Productions

additional training

BFA, Dance Performance

SMU · 2008

How I Found My Voice

Ballet came last.
It taught me the most.

West African came first. Then modern (Katherine Dunham, Lester Horton, Martha Graham) where I truly found myself; I’m a modern dancer at heart. Ballet came late. And because it came late, it humbled me: it made me accept exactly where I was, tune into my own body, and build my confidence one honest correction at a time. Ballet is where I learned to see myself, and it made me better in every form I already loved.

The hardest thing I started latest is the thing that taught me the most about beginning, which is exactly what I hand to every adult who walks in sure they’re too late.

It’s why Art of VIII teaches seven forms, not one. I don’t believe in a single shoe for every foot. Each discipline asks something different of you and hands something different back. A well-rounded dancer isn’t collecting styles, she’s finding the one that finally lets her hear her own voice.

“When a body moves, it’s the most revealing thing. Dance for me a minute, and I’ll tell you who you are.”

— Mikhail Baryshnikov

The Story

A studio born from
something missing

With all that training behind me, I looked at the dance world and saw a gap no one was naming: there was no home for adults. Not children learning the basics. Not professionals chasing a performance career. Just grown, busy, brilliant, sometimes broken-open adults who needed movement as much as anyone.
 
So I built one. In September 2020, I opened Art of VIII School of Dance in Dallas–Fort Worth, and in five years, I’ve served more than 3,000 students and built not just a studio, but a community anchored in the belief that beginnings are available at every age and every stage.

“I didn’t build Art of VIII because I had it all figured out. I built it because I knew what it felt like to need a space and not find one. That’s what drives everything I do.”

What I've Built

Every season, students who walk in uncertain walk out transformed

And every year, I bring that transformation to the Eisemann Center stage, where adult dancers, many performing for the very first time, stand before a full house and claim something they never thought they’d have. Two showcases have marked our calendar: Rebirth of the Phoenix in 2024, and Rebirth of the Phoenix: ASCENSION in 2025, where 100+ adult dancers earned every moment. In October 2026, we rise again with Rebirth of the Phoenix: SOAR.

I’m a Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses graduate (Cohort 34), a keynote speaker, a community builder, and the creator of InGoodCo, a virtual movement community that extends Art of VIII beyond the studio walls. I consult with organizations, speak on stages, and I’m putting it all on the page in a book that’s on its way.

3K+

Adult students

served in DFW

17

Years of teaching
professional dance

5

years of building the
only adult-exclusive
studio in Dallas

7

Dance disciplines
taught under one roof

GS

Goldman Sachs
10KSB Scholar

What I Believe

Five things I know to be true

01

You don't learn movement. You remember it.

Adults don’t come to dance to acquire a new skill. They come to recover the part of themselves the world told them to sit still and bury.

02

Late is a story, not a fact.

The window you think closed never closed. Beginning as an adult isn’t starting behind, it’s the bravest way to begin, and it’s open at every age and every stage.

03

Not knowing is the point, not the barrier.

I built the one room where being a beginner in the open is allowed, where a woman gets to be seen before she’s good at something.

04

The body keeps the score, and holds the way through.

Burnout, disconnection, and stagnation live in the body first. Movement isn’t an escape from them, it’s the path through. In a boardroom as much as on a dance floor.

05

Transformation is a practice, not a destination.

Nobody arrives finished. I keep beginning, and I’m building a place where everyone can.

“Great dancers are not great because of their technique. They are great because of their passion.”

— Martha Graham

The Vision

This was never meant to stay one studio

What I built in Dallas is a sanctuary, a place adults come to remember who they are through movement. My work now is to make that sanctuary reach further than one city: through corporate walls, onto stages, into InGoodCo, and into rooms I haven’t built yet. The real vision is a world where any adult, anywhere, has a place to begin again, and knows transformation isn’t a destination they missed. It’s a practice that’s still open to them.

One million lives moved by 2040

Ready to move something forward?

Whether you’re stepping onto the dance floor for the first time or bringing wellness to your team, the path starts with a single step.
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