Faculty

Elizabeth Ellis – Dance Instructor/Founder

Miss Elizabeth started Leap Dance Studio in 2010 and has been teaching dance since 2002. She loves to watch the learning process of her students and is passionate about offering dance in a positive environment. After growing up dancing in Rapid City, South Dakota, she moved to New York City and graduated from the The Ailey School with a concentration in ballet and modern dance. Elizabeth later completed a BA in Dance from SUNY’s Empire State College, where she focused her studies on child development and dance education. During her ten years in New York City she performed in musicals, danced with the Amir Levi Dance Company, choreographed shows, and taught ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, creative movement, and modern. She can’t wait to start teaching your children!

Ann Hunt – Dance Instructor

Miss Ann holds a BFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah and has been teaching dance for over ten years. While in college, she taught creative movement for the Salt Lake City, Utah School District, as well as ballet and jazz at Elite Dance Studio. After finishing her degree, Ann became the Artistic Director of the Juan Diego Catholic High School Dance Department in Draper, Utah, where she taught contemporary, jazz, ballet, ballroom, and choreography. She was a member of the Utah Dance Education Organization and the National Dance Education Organization. As a mother of four children, Miss Ann understands the importance of a great education in all areas of a child’s life. She is committed to providing her students with a positive learning environment and a high quality dance education.

Julie Wolfrum - Dance Instructor

Miss Julie, a graduate of the 2003 University of Colorado Dance Program and recipient the University Dance Scholarship has been immersed in dancing since the young age of three and teaching movement to ages 1 to 99 for over 20 years. Through her years, she has been a guest artist at such festivals as Women on their Way (WOW), the Boulder Fringe Festival, Estes Park Dance Festival, GreenFest, Trolley Dance Tours, and many more. Also known as an artivist, Julie uses movement as a social medium as seen through performing and choreographing with such companies as Oakland's Dancers without Boarders, Art in Action, Venus Christ: The Rock Opera, and various performances at the Oberlin Dance Collective (ODC). She is one of the original members of SoShe’s Performance Collective, which still performs, choreographs, and teaches mainly in the Bay area. Julie is dedicated to movement for children and feels blessed that she gets the joy of teaching the next generation to move and groove it!

Jami Menke - Dance Instructor

Miss Jami is a native of Chicago, who moved to Colorado to bring her two passions together, the mountains and dance. Jami has been dancing all her life; she danced on scholarship at the Joffrey Ballet School, trained at The Edge in California, won numerous state and national dance and pom competitions, attended California Institute of the Arts, and improved her craft at many prestigious dance schools in Chicago. Jami furthered her dance education at Columbia College Chicago where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a teaching concentration as a dance major. She performed, choreographed, and taught throughout the Chicago community. Jami’s most recent choreographing achievement was an award winning piece for The Academy of Dance Arts in IL. She is an accomplished teacher, who has been teaching dance for over 15 years. Her dance techniques include Ballet, Contemporary, Hip Hop, Jazz, Lyrical, Modern, Pointe, Pom, and Tap. Jami currently teaches throughout the Denver area, and is thrilled to pass on her talent, and love for a wonderful art form which she hopes to inspire a new generation of dancers.

Megan Clark – Dance Instructor

Miss Megan, originally from Kansas City, Missouri, knew from an early age that dance, and even teaching dance, were going to be a major part of her life. Megan graduated from Oklahoma City University’s Ann Lacy School of American Dance and Arts Management with a Bachelor of Science degree in American Dance Pedagogy and a Master of Fine Arts in Dance degree. While at Oklahoma City University, Megan was a member of the American Spirit Dance Company. After graduation, Megan accepted a position within the Ann Lacy School of American Dance and Arts Management. Megan held numerous roles at OCU, including Assistant Director to the Community Dance Center, an on-campus learning-laboratory for the American Dance Teacher Majors, Assistant Professor of Dance, and Academic Advisor. Megan has extensive training in ballet, jazz, tap, and musical theater dance. She also has professional stage management, performance, and choreographic experience with productions such as South Pacific, Coppélia, The Wizard of Oz, and Beauty & the Beast. Specializing in teaching younger children, Megan is certified in the Leap ‘N Learn ® teaching program. Megan’s favorite part about teaching is to see the joy as dancers discover their love for dance and movement, and she looks forward to seeing that grow in your dancer!

Svaja Mikulionis - Dance Instuctor

Miss Svaja began her love of dance at the age of three. She studied ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, and lyrical at Center Stage Dance Company in Northville, MI. As she began high school, she started teaching, choreographing and performing at annual recitals, winter and spring tours, as well as other venues around the Detroit area. After high school, Svaja was accepted into Grand Valley State University's dance company where she gained more training in ballet, modern, and pointe. Here she performed and choreographed with the dance troupe, in addition to appearing as a guest performer in The Moving Company's, "Sleeping Beauty”. She graduated from Grand Valley with an English/Language Arts, Elementary Education, and Dance degree. Svaja worked at Discovery Dance in Fennville where she choreographed story ballets and brought several students to competitions. When she moved to Illinois, she continued teaching ballet, jazz, and lyrical at Contempo Dance Academy in Lisle. She obtained a group exercise certification through AFAA as well as a Zumba certification, which she utilized by teaching throughout Illinois. Svaja loves being able to share her love of teaching through dance and is excited to continue to do this at Leap Dance Studio.

Kelsey Bonar - Dance Instructor

Originally from South Dakota, Miss Kelsey began her dance training in Rapid City at the Academy of Dance, studying ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, lyrical, and modern. She continued her studies through a scholarship to the University of Minnesota in the BFA program, where she focused on ballet and modern dance under the direction of Toni Pierce-Sands, Abdo Sayegh, Karla Grotting, and Erin Thompson. She found her true passion when she began teaching in 2010 and has been teaching ever since. Kelsey enjoys being able to teach not only proper technique, but also creativity, innovation, teamwork, and positive self-esteem in the studio. She looks forward to sharing her knowledge and passion for dance with Leap Dance Studio!

Nicole Bucks - Dance Instructor

At age six, Miss Nicole’s life as a movement artist began with a mysterious metal stick called a baton and the subsequent discovery of tap shoes and tutus at her first recital. From that moment on, it was tap, jazz, ballet, figure skating, and anything else involving music and movement. After a lot of hard work and perseverance, she found herself studying Dance at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. It was there that she met her soul mates--Modern Dance and Choreography. After receiving her B.A., she’s nurtured her propensity for teaching at the Yocum Institute for Arts Education; grew as an actor with Metamorphosis Performing Company; defied gravity with Apparatus Collective Aerial Dance Company, and was exposed to what it means to go way beyond one’s perceived limitations with REV9 Dance Company. For the last four years she’s been performing with Avatar Movement Dance Company. Along with dancing, she enjoys rock climbing, snowboarding, biking, and traveling. She is very excited to begin teaching at Leap.

Jessica Montoya - Dance Instructor

Miss Jessica started her dance journey in Orlando, Florida studying jazz, tap, and ballet. Upon moving to Philadelphia at age ten she discovered her real passion was for ballet and began concentrating primarily on that. She was able to round out her education with Limon and Martha Graham modern training as well. After apprenticing, she joined the regional company Dance Del Bello and performed soloist and principal roles in full length classical ballets. It was always her dream to move to NYC, so when she was accepted on scholarship to Marymount Manhattan College it was a dream come true! She became a company member in her first semester with the dance company at the college, performing and touring the tri-state area. During her time living in NY, she explored acting opportunities as well as visual arts, which led her to window display design, creating seasonal windows at boutiques and shops all over Brooklyn. Ultimately, her love and passion for ballet led her to American Ballet Theatre where she completed their National Training curriculum and became a certified teacher. Coupled with her love of working with children, she is so excited to teach at Leap!

Madeline Shaffer - Dance Instructor

Miss Madeline is a new teacher hailing from NYC. She received a BA in dance from Jacksonville University and has been teaching and performing in the city for the last several years. While in New York, she taught for Broadway Bound Kids, performed in many musicals, danced for Vashti Dance Theatre, and went on a National tour. Some of her favorite recent projects are the Off Broadway production of By Jupiter, and the world premiere of Evil Dead: the Musical High School Edition. Madeline has been teaching since 2009 in studios, camps, and intensives. She can’t wait to meet your students and deeply believes in a positive and uplifting environment for kids and loves how dance can be a perfect building block for confidence and growth!

Mallory Wharton - Office Staff

Miss Mallory began singing, dancing and acting when she was three years old and developed a love for performing at an extremely young age. She did theater from ages 5-16 at Young Actors Theatre in her hometown of Tallahassee, Florida. She has been working in administration and law offices since she was seventeen years old and enjoys communicating with so many different types of people on a daily basis while being able to assist others and share her love of dance and the arts. Mallory attended Florida State University for civil engineering where she acquired an associate’s degree with a minor in mathematics and urban/regional planning. She moved from Tallahassee to Denver in 2014 to pursue a degree in architecture and has now graduated from the University of Colorado Denver with a Bachelors of Science in Architecture. In addition to schooling at UCD & FSU, Mallory received a certificate in yoga teacher training from Samadhi Yoga Studio in 2015. Mallory has now been working at Leap for five years and truly loves being involved in such a great program and working with such great people.

Emily Loya

Miss Emily started dancing at the age of 3 in Iowa City, IA. She is trained in ballet, jazz, lyrical, contemporary and tap. At a young age she began competing and attending conventions which earned her scholarships to numerous schools in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. She started her teaching career 15 years ago and quickly realized her passion for sharing her love of dance with others. As the Co-Director of the competitive team Affect Dance Co, her jazz, lyrical and contemporary choreography has won numerous regional and national first place awards. She has recently relocated to the Denver area and is excited to join the Leap Dance Studio team!