Loving to push boundaries and never giving up, no matter what has been thrown at me, has always been a huge part of my dance journey. It began like most other dancers, at a young age through college, then on to a 10 year professional career in my 20's. After moving back to Richmond from New York City, I found my calling as an educator and always wanting to deliver the very best for students. What I ultimately found, my students inspired me every day, and many days left me a little teary eyed because of the joy they brought to my life. Being an educator has always been a space where I felt most alive and striving to teach my amazing students beyond expectation, so they could reach their goals and realize their dreams. I have always remained grounded in my dance roots, (fun fact: I adore a good ballet barre), but since I was young, I had a vision of a space where the arts could come together in a beautifully inclusive, kind and joyful place. A space beyond the traditional dance studio..... This place is SOUL Aerial & Performing Arts Center... a vision made into a reality.

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My Name is Cierra Wilson. I've been living and dancing Richmond for 5 years now. My RVA Dance journey started with working at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School as their dance teacher. This began my love for reaching the black community through dance. It was for my community that I started Beyond Borders Performing Arts.

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I started dancing at West End Academy of Dance when I was 4 years old. After a few years of exploring various styles, I quickly realized hip hop was my true passion. Thanks to the wonderful teaching staff and welcoming environment, WEAD became my second home. Dance continued to by a critical part of my world as I transitioned from high school to college. After four years at the University of Virginia, participating on a hip hop dance team throughout, it was time to enter “the real world.” I worked in a corporate job for five years and realized something major was missing from my life. As luck would have it, WEAD was looking for a hip hop teacher, so I jumped on the opportunity. After the first night of teaching, my passion had been reignited. I loved being back in the studio, connecting with the students at WEAD, and sharing my passion for dance with them. As the now Owner and Studio Director of West End Academy of Dance, my ultimate goal is to ensure our students have the same wonderful experience I had growing up as a WEAD dancer.

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I’ve shared my dance journey before, but since then it has drastically changed. I shifted from working as a teaching artist and performer to being a full time artist (an anti-racist, anti-institutional artist at that…) . I’ve been discovering what that is for me: applying for residencies, researching artist grants, mfa programs, developing a daily ritual and movement practice, connecting with other artists in the field across the nation.. Anyway.. it has come with challenges.. but it is so fulfilling to mesh my artistry with organizing and activism.

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Being nominated for Choreographer of the Year is an incredible honor, that frankly still seems a bit surreal. I am truly grateful and my soul feels so full knowing that my work has impacted the world around me.

Born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, I trained extensively in all genres at Chesterfield Dance Center and attended Appomattox Regional Governor’s School for dance. I then began teaching tap at CDC when I was 17 years old. After high school, I continued to teach at the studio, and moved to New York every summer to train with world renowned hoofers and immerse myself in the tap community.

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When you grow up dancing, it’s hard to just give it up. But for most of us – dance classes just stop when you become an adult. Few of us go on to do anything professional with it and that means all those dance lessons at Miss Susie Sunshine’s Dance School, just get dusty and the next thing you know – you’re on some treadmill in some big box gym, hoping to lose weight and blasting Madonna thinking you could make your own OK Go video if no one looks.

That was kinda what got me to open my own fitness studio.

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Ingrid Pettus Lorenzo has been teaching, educating, dancing, and choreographing for over 40 years. Originally from New York and raised in Philadelphia, there has never been a moment or year she hasn’t learned something new, inspired herself or others. Growing up, she began singing at the age of 7. From 3rd grade, she auditioned and performed with the All City Choir through high school. When she first saw Singing in the Rain at the age of 11, she began to emulate the singing and dancing she saw on TV. By the age of 14, Ingrid would start her career and love of the theatre arts in high school. With no prior dance training due to her family’s inability to afford dance classes, she would go on to audition for Philadelphia’s first public MAGNET high school called The Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts. With the help of a fellow auditionee loaning her a pair of ballet shoes and quickly showing her the 5 basic positions of ballet in the arms and feet, with determination and a passion to pursue her dream in the arts world, she was accepted.

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When I was younger, I wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer (I'm telling my age lol). While that dream didn't come true, my love of dance remained. About 10 years ago I discovered urban line dancing and was instantly hooked. I began attending weekly events and every class that I could. One of my classmates (and dear friend) encouraged me to begin teaching my own class. I started with 1 class in 2013 and currently teach 4 classes per week...thanks to modern technology.

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Hello RVA community, my name is Hadley Barrett. I started my dance journey when I was eight years old with my very first class, hip hop. I instantly fell in love. I entered the dance competition world a couple of years later and have never looked back. Rehearsing a dance and performing it on stage brings me so much joy and satisfaction. I spend almost all of my time at my studio, Chesterfield Dance Center, learning and growing as a person and dancer. I train in the dance styles of ballet, modern, contemporary, jazz, tap, hip hop, and musical theater. I am also lucky enough to be part of the Delirium dance competition team where we push ourselves to be the best dancers we can be. In addition to classes, I am also a student assistant. Student assistants help the teachers plan out classes and teach the children the art form. I just love seeing the children embrace dance and build their confidence over time. After high school, I plan on furthering my dance career by attending college and double majoring in dance and psychology.

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Hi! I’m Avery Caddell and I am 11 years old. Dance has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My mom, Lauren Czajkowski-Gareau is a dancer and when I was not even a year old, she and my grandmother opened J’adore DANCE. Whether it was watching my moms classes and rehearsals, being the “DJ” and running music, being in class myself or attending a performance (My first professional performance was to see a Starr Foster show when I was 3 years old) I have always been dancing or around dance. Growing up in the studio makes my life very unique and crazy sometimes but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I have met so many awesome people and had the opportunity to build great relationships and friendships with dancers and choreographers from all over being “a studio kid”.

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Hello! My name is Madison Kang, I am 16 years old, and I am a competition dancer at Prestige Dance Studio. I began dancing at the age of 6 at Jessica Morgan’s School of Dance, and have continued to dance there throughout its transition to Prestige Dance Studio. For the past seven years, I have been a member of Prestige Dance Company as well as the Prestige Dance Studio Royal Court competition team, an elite group of dancers hand selected for exceptional technique and artistry. I train in various styles including ballet/pointe, jazz, tap, lyrical/contemporary, and hip hop for approximately 8-10 hours a week from my teachers: Christy Burke, Stefanie Ogunwumiju, J.T. Beverly, Ashley Wyatt, Cara Cubbage, and Tristi McMaster Robinson. In addition, I am an assistant teacher for younger classes at the studio. I am also a junior at Maggie L. Walker Governor’s School for Government and International Studies, where I am an active member of the School Advisory Council and various honor societies and clubs.

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My name is King VersaStylez and I have been battling for a little over 15 years

My dance journey began my 5th grade year or elementary school, at the time period my mom was stationed on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan and we had just moved there. I Remember getting off the airplane and going straight to soccer practice, where she decided for me that I would be going to my first "dance party". At this point I had no idea I could dance well, I just knew I enjoyed it. Later at the Youth Center a song comes on that I recognize back home and I zoned out, coming back to reality I realized the entire room was staring at me and that’s when I realized Dancing was something I could grow to enjoy. I had a youth mentor that was apart of a local crew and him and the other members of the team were the people who taught me the art of freestyle dancing.

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The Prestige Dance Company was established in 2014 in an effort to offer Prestige Dance Studio students - interested in advancing their technique and dance exposure - the opportunity to compete, to meet and take class from some of the industry’s top teachers and choreographers, and to join a group of dancers who are equally invested in and dedicated to their dance training.

Prestige Dance Company (PDC) dancers attend between 4-5 competitions each season, frequenting the stages at DanceMakers (DMI), StarQuest, Velocity, Hollywood Vibe, and NUVO among others. Prestige Artistic Director, Stefanie Ogunwumiju, makes a conscious effort to send PDC dancers to a variety of competitions - many of them offering workshops - understanding the importance of exposure to a variety of teachers and dance techniques to a dancer’s overall growth.

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We are very honored to be nominated for best collaboration as the Artistic Director and Ballet Mistress of the Stavna Ballet. We complimented each other in our passion of ballet to create something innovative and fresh for today's diverse audience. We are extremely proud of Stavna Ballet's production of Alice in Wonderland.

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Dogwood Dance Project started in 2010 because 5 college friends wanted to continue to dance together after graduation, and we think what makes Dogwood so special is that the company really hasn’t changed as far as that simple goal over the past 10 years. Though we’ve said goodbye to original company members, welcomed new dancers, commissioned work from upwards of 15 Virginia choreographers and performed across the state, at its core Dogwood is still simply about the opportunity to do what we love with people we love in rehearsal every week. With all the changes that have taken place in our lives--moves, career switches, weddings, babies and so much more--we wouldn’t still be doing this if it wasn’t really all about the love between friends.

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RVA Dance Collective was formed in 2007 when Jess Burgess and Danica Kalemdaroglu met and joined forces to create a new voice in dance for the Richmond community. The co-artistic directors work tirelessly to bridge the gap between artists of all mediums in the city of Richmond. Formed under the assumption that great art cannot survive or thrive without the spirit of collaboration, RVA Dance Collective’s artistic goal is the union of all forms of art in the Central Virginia area. Burgess and Kalemdaroglu have worked with visual artists, film artists, musicians, photographers and theatre artists in the spirit of finding absolute creativity. We host a free community modern class every Sunday at Dogtown Dance Theatre because as said by the late Martha Graham, “the body is your instrument in dance, but your art is outside that creature,” RVA Dance Collective’s ongoing mission is geared towards the inclusion of all forms of art for creative and lifelong inspiration.

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Collectively, the dancers of Brown Ballerinas for Change, whether their dance journey began at the age of three or eight, have found a passion for dance and have become change makers and influencers around the world. They became the face and voice of youth activist involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. In the midst of a pandemic they were able to form and incorporate Brown Ballerinas for Change as a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization and use their gift of ballet/dance to promote activism, social justice, and to increase diversity in dance. They’ve found a peaceful way to get involved using dance as an act of protest and to show other young people that they too could get involved in the fight for justice.

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Andrew “Narsi” Pruitt have been dancing since the age of 6 learning choreography from his mother. Through the years, Narsi has picked up, learned more than 3 dance styles; like Krump, Litefeet, Animation, Lyrical, Interpretive, and FlexN; fused other hobbies into his style of dance; such as, roller skating, art, music engineering, poetry and improv. Traveling to different states also aided the influences for his freestyle nature like walking through downtown cities, viewing graffiti murals throughout towns, and understanding mass cultures within each state. With brief understanding, Narsi discovered parts and pieces of molding and creating a style in which he uses the word, “Universal”, to create unlimited opportunities to express to any genres of music and think outside-the-box with human visual effects. His top 2 favorite genres of music to “Feel” his movements and go into a “flow” state are R&B and Soul.

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Hi! I'm Allison Day Meyer and I am a dancer, dance instructor, and dance photographer from Northern Virginia. My love of dance and passion for capturing movement on camera are what drive me.

I began my dance training at Chris Collins Dance Studio at the age of 3 and graduated high school with a diploma from the Fine & Performing Arts Program from Woodbridge High School. I furthered my dance studies at Virginia Commonwealth University where I received a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography.

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Originally from western New York, north of Buffalo, I began dancing at the age of seven and went on to continue my dance education at the University of Buffalo, receiving a B.A. in Dance in 2005. During my college career I had the opportunity to take class from several professional dance companies, was a member of the University’s Zodiaque Studio Dance Ensemble, the UB Dance Team and fun fact; cheered professionally for the NFL’s Buffalo Bills footballTeam.

After college I moved to Richmond, VA where I spent nine years teaching for Jessica Morgan School of Dance until its transition to Prestige Dance Studio in 2014. Those years of experience and mentorship were invaluable to me especially as I began my role as Artistic Director of Prestige.

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