Dance Break 231 welcomes dancers age 5-18 to participate in a four-day dance experience, this year hosted in beautiful Petoskey Michigan! Read on to learn what we have in store and check out the amazing teachers/choreographers lined up to be there!
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Classes
Registered Junior and Senior dancers will get four days of dance instruction and choreography in the styles of contemporary, tap, jazz, musical theatre and production. Classes are 8am-4pm, Tuesday-Friday.
Mini's will get four, half-days of dance fun in the style of Pop Jazz and will also get to perform in the production piece!
See the detailed schedule HERE.
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Finale Performance
Dancers will learn choreography in each of their classes to perform at the end of the week! The performance is free and open to the public!
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Scholarships
At the Finale Performance, we will be offering partial/full scholarships for DanceBreak 231 in the summer of 2024! These scholarships will be awarded to dancers who exhibited good work ethic and positive attitudes throughout the week.
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Extra Performance Pieces
We are offering studios a chance to bring competition/recital pieces that they would like to perform in our Finale Performance! Each studio may audition six total dances and our faculty will choose up to three to be added to the performance line up. Studio Owners must register the pieces by sending an email to hello@dancebreak231.com. Auditions date and time TBA.
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Meet the Faculty
Debora Knight
Co-Director
Debora Knight is the former owner/director of The Conservatory of Dance in Manistee, the Great Lakes Dance Academy in Petoskey, and former Dance Director at Concord Academy Boyne. She is the current Associate Director for From Boston to Bay Harbor and Artistic Director of the Northern Michigan Youth Ballet Ensamble. Ms. Deb has enjoyed sharing her passion for dance for 40 years! Co-directing Dance Break 231 and reuniting with former students to coordinate a fantastic summer dance program is fulfilling a long time dream!
Shelli Golembiewski
Co-Director
Shelli was born and raised in Manistee. She is an alumni of the Conservatory of Dance in Manistee and is now Co-Owner and Instructor there. She is a past member of the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp International Ballet Ensemble and a graduate of Dance Masters of America with certifications in Ballet, Jazz and Tap.
Tarah Hodges
Co-Director
Tarah is co-owner, teacher and alumni of the Conservatory Dance in Manistee. She has worked for the Walt Disney World Company as a character performer and character dancer. Now, she focuses her time as a competition choreographer where she has earned many choreography awards for her routines. Tarah is certified in ballet and jazz through Dance Masters of America.
Hailey Bruce
Tap Instructor
Hailey Bruce grew up in Saint Joseph, Michigan, training at the Citadel Dance and Music Center. She then went on to earn her BA in Dance and Creative Writing from Denison University, training primarily in modern, postmodern, and African dance. While working towards her MA in elementary education at the University of Central Florida, she performed in many musical theatre productions. Miss Hailey has been teaching with Great Lakes Dance Academy since 2021, teaching musical theatre, tap, contemporary, ballet, jazz, lyrical, pointe, and pre-pointe classes. She is excited to be back at Dance Break for the third year, this time teaching tap!
Lauren Judkins
Musical Theatre Instructor
Lauren Judkins (LJ) is a 2023 alum of Conservatory of Dance and is excited to be returning back to Dance Break for her second year teaching. She has a background as competitive dancer, having trained in a wide range of styles and participated in numerous regional competitions and performance opportunities. Lauren previously studied at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York City as a dance major for two semesters. Her training included a rigorous schedule of over 40 hours of dancing a week in many styles along with acting and theater coursework. Now based in Northern Michigan, Lauren teaches and choreographs for studios in the area. She is excited to bring her passion for Musical Theater to Dance Break this year.
Kaia Kenyon
Jazz Instructor
Kaia grew up as a third
generation dancer which made the dance studio her second home. Her styles of training include ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, hip hop, acro, ballroom, and many more. She began competing and attending
conventions at age 5 and started choreographing as young as 10 years old. Kaia is currently working as a Retail Manager with CRU dance competition and as an Industry Tribe Assistant with Activate Your Artistry. Kaia has also loved choreographing and teaching for different musicals as well as guest teaching for multiple studios around Michigan. She is very excited to be joining the DB231 family and can't wait to meet you all!
Bethany Socher
Mini Instructor
Beth is a Conservatory of Dance alumni and current teacher there. She also teaches at the Landing Dance Academy in Cadillac and is director of the Dream Team competition team. Bethany has completed three years of training at the Dance Masters of America Teachers Training School and is certified through Alixa Flexibility’s modules one and two. She loves being able to expand her love of dance to her students!
Who Will It Be?
?? Instructor
Info coming soon!