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Vickye Allard
Ballet & Contemporary
Vickye was one of the original members of the Anna Wyman Dance Theatre. She toured and performed with the company for eleven years and then went on to become a senior full time teacher with the Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts. She has been involved in the dance arts for over 35 years, and her experience, talent, and patience has inspired young dancers to achieve new levels of excellence.
Marie-Elle Carrothers
Ballet Director
Marie-Elle was born and raised in Quebec. Her dance training was at L'Academie des Grands Ballet Canadiens and L'Academie de Ballet du Saguenay, and she has over 25 years teaching experience at such schools as the National Ballet School in Toronto, York University, and George Brown College. She has taught at schools throughout Canada, including the National Ballet, and locally Marie-Elle has had guest-teaching engagements with the Goh Ballet Academy and Arts Umbrella. Currently, Marie-Elle instructs students in the Professional Training Program (PTP) and Classical Ballet Training Program (CBT).
Troy McLaughlin
Tap
Troy hails from Richmond, Virginia and holds a BFA (Hon) in dance from The University of the Arts, Philadelphia, receiving the award for best male choreographer and the prestigious Senate Award for top achievement in performing arts. Troy's diverse background includes working as an artist (e.g., dancing with New York's Manhattan Tap and appearing in such productions as Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express), contributing extensively as a guest choreographer, and working in numerous university programmes. He has also worked with the Public School System to bring dance to inner city and under-privileged children in New York City, Philadelphia, Virginia and Las Vegas.
Megan Walker-Straight
Contemporary - Professional Training Programme and Classical Ballet Training Program (CBT)
Megan holds a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and Film from the University of California, Berkeley. She danced in New York City for 14 years in the companies of Lucinda Childs, Douglas Dunn, Kenneth King, and for several years in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. After an extensive performing career, Megan attended the Master of Arts programme in Dance Therapy at the University of New York and trained at the Helix Institute for Psychotherapy and Spiritual Healing before working as a dance therapist for inner city youth and their families. Megan is currently a seasonal instructor at Simon Fraser University and is teaching contemporary classes with The Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts.
James Gnam
Ballet
James received his training at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto. Prior to his joining Ballet British Columbia in 2004, James danced with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal and JoeINK . During his five seasons with BBC, James had the opportunity to perform feature roles in works created by Jiri Kylian, Twyla Tharp, Mark Morris and Lar Lubavitch. As a teacher, James has worked as a repetiteur for Ballet BC, its Mentor program and Summer Dance Intensive.
We are please to have James join our faculty as an instructor in our Professional Training Program (PTP) @ The Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts.
Bonnie Stewart
Flamenco
Bonnie holds a degree in Fine Arts from U.B.C. She has toured both provincially and nationally. Bonnie performed and studied with such flamenco greats as Sabas Santos, Raul Salcedo, and Carmen do Torres. She was showcased at both flamenco del Mar and the Flamenco Festival, Vancouver, in 2004. Bonnie has taught Flamenco and Modern at Anna Wyman for many years.
Cristina Bucci
Hip Hop & Jazz
Cristina is a dancer, choreographer, adjudicator and teacher. She has taught, choreographed and judged for the International Dance Seminar in Brazil, represented Canada in the Macau International Dance Festival in China and has performed in Egypt, Israel, and London, England. She received her training in Los Angeles, New York and Vancouver. In addition, Christina is a registered holistic nutritionist.
Joey Bothwell
Jazz, Hip Hop, Musical Theatre, Tap
Joey has danced for over 20 years in jazz, tap, hip Hop, and lyrical. She has been a professional dancer for over 10 years with famous companies and has made some television and film debuts. Her passion for dance comes through in her love of teaching.
Kara MacDonald
Ballet, Modern, Jazz and Tap
Kara began her training with The Dance Connection, moving on to The Free Flight School of Dance, York University, and most recently Canada's national Ballet School. She has completed 3 years at York University as a Dance Major focusing on ballet and modern technique, and is currently finishing her third and final year at Canada's National Ballet School's Teacher Training Program. Kara plans to earn her Associate level Qualification from the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing in National Dancing before the end of June, 2008. She has successfully completed her Intermediate RAD and Cecchetti exams and is currently scheduled to take the Advanced I exams for both syllabi in the spring. Kara has been teaching Junior Ballet classes at PSB Dance Academy over the past school year, and thoroughly enjoys working with children and dancers of all ages.
Stephana Arnold
Ballet, Body Conditioning
With over 20 years experience, Stephana began her dance studies at the National Ballet School of Canada where she received the prestigious Peter Dwyer Award and Honors standing in her Intermediate and Advance Cecchetti Ballet Examinations. Upon graduation she danced with several small companies before joining The National Ballet of Canada in 1992 - 95. In 1996, she was asked to join Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal and quickly rose through the ranks to First Soloist. She was a favorite muse for many choreographers and has been invited to dance at many gala evenings such as tributes to Celia France, Evelyn Hart and other dance festivals across the country. Stephana then came to Ballet British Columbia in 2003 where she danced an extensive array of principal roles, from the Woman in Conversation Peice, Titania in Faerie Queen, Stella in Streetcar Named Desire and her most notable and last, Carmen in February of 2007. Stephana is now an ISSA Certified Personal Trainer, and conducts her own body conditioning classes and ballet classes at The Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts.
Muffet Kirk
Ballet
Muffet has trained under many fabulous teachers in Vancouver, including Anna Wyman, who inspired, encouraged, and trained her until she finished secondary school. She is a graduate of the National Ballet School Teacher's Training Course with the ability to train young dancers in a pre-professional setting and her teaching credentials in the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, Cecchetti Method. Since then she has taught for 2 years at The National Ballet School, 2 years in Quebec, 8 years at Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts and for 15 years at many schools across the lower mainland. Muffet has also been involved working with dance schools, professional companies, the Cecchetti Society, and individuals in the arts, helping them run their businesses.
Natalie LeFebvre-Gnam
Ballet
A native of Prince George, BC, Natalie studied at L'Ecole Superieure de Danse du Quebec, in Montreal. Since then, she has worked with Le Jeune Ballet du Quebec, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, and dancersdancing. As an independent performer Natalie has the pleasure of collaborating with a variety of choreographers. More extensively, she collaborates with her husband, dancer/choreographer, James Gnam as a performer, rehearsal director, and company manager for the plastic orchid factory, a Vancouver based non-profit arts society dedicated to the creation, commissioning and production of performance/art. The body of work the couple has created has been presented at contemporary dance festivals across the country. In addition to her performance work, she is also a ballet and contemporary dance instructor and has appeared in both film and fashion magazines. Natalie continues to explore a broad scope of performance work and to share her creative perspective as a choreographer, rehearsal director and dance adjudicator.
Amy Laithwaite
Ballet
Amy attended the National Ballet School of Canada from 2001 - 2003, receiving her Teacher's Diploma with honours standing, and Cecchetti Associate Teachers Qualifications with Honours. She has experience teaching all ages and levels of students from creative movement for young children to classical ballet for major level exam candidates, and believes that a great deal of confidence is built when students can feel and see their progress, and ensures that this is her responsibility as a teacher. Amy will be teaching Kindergarten Ballet, Beginners Ballet and CBT 1 Ballet at The Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts.
Janet Harris
Janet trained in England and completed her qualifications to teach in Ballet, Tap, and Modern with The British Association of Teachers of Dancing and Imperial Society Teachers of Dancing by the age of 18 years. She went on to opened a very successful dancing school in the South of England for 10 years before immigrating to Toronto, where she again opened another dance school, which she ran for 5 years before moving to Vancouver. Currently, Janet travels to various local Daycare centers and Pre-Schools teaching Creative Dance Programs and continues to teach Pre-primary Tap at Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts.
Lisa Metz
Hip Hop & Tap
Lisa comes to The Anna Wyman School Of Dance Arts from Calgary, with 11 years of training in Tap and 9 years of training in Jazz with successful completion of Intermediate 3 ADAPT exams on both disciplines; 7 years of Ballet training and successful completion of Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) Advanced 1 Examination; 6 years of training in Lyrical and 4 years of training in Hip Hop and Street Jazz, as well as numerous workshops and performances including Project CPR, Sounds Bites, Inbox, Stone Foxx, Making Up, and Dance on Film to name a few. Lisa has been teaching children of all ages and levels for close to 10 years. She will be joining our faculty to teach Hip Hop, as well as filling Troy McLaughlin's 'Tap Shoes' teaching the Boys Tap for 2009/2010. Welcome Lisa!
Stephanie Pedraza
Stephanie carries more than 17 years of artistic experience. Her flamenco dance studies began in Vancouver under the mentorship of Rosario Ancer.
She is the recipient of many awards, and has danced with a wide variety of notable flamenco artists.
Stephanie lives in Vancouver and is well known amongst the flamenco community of students and aficionados for teaching ongoing classes and workshops in both singing and dancing. Stephanie continues to make yearly trips to Spain to take workshops and keep up to date with new developments in flamenco.
We are extremely pleased to announce that Stephanie will be joining the us at the Anna Wyman School of Dance Arts in March 2010 to introduce a new Children's Flamenco Class.
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