Faculty & Staff

MANAGING DIRECTOR 
Primary, Ballet, Jazz, Cecchetti

Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Calyn settled in the Midwest after graduating from Northwestern University with a major in dance. She was a company member with Striding Lion Performance Group (dir. Annie Arnoult), with which she performed in critically acclaimed immersive dance-theater productions and lead arts education outreach programs throughout the Chicago area. Calyn holds her Elementary Professional Cecchetti teaching certification from the Cecchetti Council of America and serves on the Midwest Committee of C.C.A’s board as Workshop Coordinator.  In addition to her role as Managing Director at DCE, Calyn directs the popular Dance Performance Workshop annually and teaches classes in ballet, jazz, and Cecchetti techniques.

ADMINISTRATION
Ballet, Pointe, Jazz

Kaleigh Dent graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance in 2020. She has danced for companies such as Joel Hall Dancers, Still Inspired, and LOUD BODIES; and was a Company Member and Rehearsal Director for Identity Performing Arts. She is currently an Operations Associate for the Tutu School Franchises. Her choreography has been featured at Trifecta Dance Collective’s Pioneers (2023), Work in Progress Showing (2023), A New Light: Emerging Choreographer Showcase (2022); Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble’s Art. Heals. (2022) and Elpis Dance Fest (2022) under Rivet, a dance company created to explore her choreographic ideas. 

Boys/Men’s Technique, Partnering, Ballet, Pointe

Mike is the founder and Artistic Director of Elements Contemporary Ballet. Prior to founding Elements, he studied both classical and contemporary ballet with local master teachers. As a dancer, Mike performed with companies such as Instruments of Movement, Tyego Dance Project, and The Chicago Ballet. As a choreographer, his work has appeared in Dance Chicago, Around the Coyote Arts Festival, Looptopia, Joel Hall’s Dances from the Halls, Evanston Arts Week, productions with the Evanston Dance Ensemble and Evanston Symphony, as well as other Chicago area festivals and dance performances. In addition to his work with Elements, Mike has taught ballet at colleges and quality dance studios throughout the North Shore and Greater Chicago area. He orchestrated events for Evanston Arts Week and DanceArt Outreach Program, and has served as Artistic Director of Koslynn Dance Academy and SASS Productions. Mr. Gosney’s choreography was selected to compete in the Joyce Theatre’s The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2010, presented at The Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago.

Ballet, Pointe

Laura Brand has performed extensively with classical and modern concert dance companies and in musical theater, commercial, and industrial shows. Her work includes performances with the Chicago Ballet Theater, Momenta, The Beverly Dance Ensemble, the Polish Opera Company, the Lyric Opera Company of Chicago, the David Puszh Company, the Ukrainian Folk Dancers, and in the Ruth Page production of The Nutcracker. She performed at the International Ballet Competition in Lima, Peru and in the PBS television production of Ruth Page’s Die Fledermaus. Laura has appeared in Annie, Sweet Charity, My Fair Lady, Funny Girl, West Side Story, and Carousel at The Theatre at the Center and West Side Story at the Timberlake Playhouse. She conducted a ballet workshop for dance teachers in Omaha, NE, and has been a judge at the National Dance Olympus competitions in Atlanta, Nashville, and Minneapolis. Laura received dance training from Loretto Rozak, Larry Long, Richard Arve and Lou Conte. 

Jazz, Tap

As artistic director of Especially Tap Chicago Dance Company, Julie has performed and choreographed on both the jazz and tap concert stages for over fifteen years with some of Chicago’s finest dance companies including River North Dance Co., The Lynda Martha Dance Co., and Chi-Town Jazz Dance, for which she served as associate director. Her credits also include Especially Tap Chicago’s performances in the Kuopio Dance Festival in Finland, the St. Louis Tap Festival, and Chicago’s own Human Rhythm Project. In addition to Dance Center Evanston, Julie has taught for Barat College, DEA, NADA, CNADM, Gus Giordano Dance Center, the Cecchetti Council and numerous studios in the Chicagoland area.

Primary, Ballet, Pointe

Wendy Park began her training in ballet, tap, jazz and modern in Indianapolis at Curtain Call Academy of the Arts and the Jordan College Academy of Dance at Butler University. As an undergraduate at Barat College’s Conservatory of Dance, Wendy performed works by Rory Foster and Eileen Cropley. Completing her degree at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, she had the opportunity to perform works set by David Gordon, Jan Eckert and Eduardo Vilaro. Ms. Park has been teaching ballet, tap, and jazz professionally for over a decade in Indianapolis, Chicago and the North Shore. Currently, she is continuing her dance education through the Cecchetti Teacher Certification program.

Primary, Ballet, Modern, Accessible Dance

Jill Waller graduated from Webster University with a B.F.A. in dance and a minor in French. While there, she danced with Webster Dance Ensemble for four years and with Webster Dance Theatre for two years. After moving to Chicago, Jill performed with the Joel Hall Dancers for one season, Rasa Dance Chicago for nearly a decade and Tyego Dance Project for two seasons. She has also done many projects with independent artists throughout the Chicagoland area during her professional career.  Jill is a member of the Cecchetti Council of America. She teaches preschoolers through adults at Dance Center Evanston, Hyde Park School of Dance, and also outreach programs at Marquette Park District.

Ballet, Pointe, Cecchetti

Rosina DeVries was born and raised in England where she received her early training with Elizabeth Swan at the Weston Schools of Dancing. She later studied with Viccy Chappell at the London College of Dance, where she was awarded the Maestro Enrico Cecchetti Final Diploma. Rosina danced with the Chelmsford Ballet Company and Newpalm productions, before moving to Greece and then New York to teach at the Coupe Theatre Studio. Former students have moved on to study at the School of American Ballet, The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre, The Juilliard School and North Carolina School of the Arts, as well as performing with Richmond Ballet, Carolina Ballet, Ballet Theatre of Maryland, and New Jersey Ballet. Rosina is a Diploma Fellow and Examiner with the Cecchetti Council of America.

Ballet, Pointe

Laura Gates grew up in a northwest suburb of Chicago. She holds degrees in Dance and Psychology from the University of Iowa where she was privileged to train with many gifted artists. Professionally, she danced with Swallow Cliff Dance Company, Concert Dance, Inc., and several independent choreographers before joining Thodos Dance Chicago in 1999.  During her six-year tenure as a TDC dancer, she performed locally, nationally, and internationally and worked with many renowned artists including Broadway icon Ann Reinking. Laura went on to serve TDC for twelve more years as Rehearsal Director, Ballet Mistress, Artistic Associate, and New Dances Project Manager. Laura teaches throughout the Chicago area and has served on the faculty of many intensive programs including TDC, CNADM, Dance Masters of Wisconsin, Inaside Chicago Dance, Gus Giordano Dance School, the Illinois State Dance Festival, and the Midwest Cecchetti Council Ballet Workshop. She has been a guest artist at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, Riverside Brookfield High School, Evanston Township High School, Kansas State University, and the University of Kansas. A proud member of the Chicago dance community for over 20 years, Laura is passionately committed to the art of dance and furthering dance education.

Ballet, Pointe

Victoria Barlow began her training at the Rockford Dance Company School with Janet Quilici, continuing with Ken Von Heidecke of the Lyric Opera and Joy Xu, former principal with Shanghai Ballet. As a member of the company, she danced many soloist and principal roles and toured with the company to China. After moving to Chicago, she completed her B.A. in Dance Education at Columbia College and continued training with Larry Long, Birute Barodicate, Anna Paskevska, and Homer Bryant. She performed with Chicago Ballet for two seasons and Bryant Ballet for six. She has danced in several productions of The Nutcracker throughout Chicagoland, including Ruth Page’s under the direction of Larry Long. Her repertoire includes Cinderella, Snow White, Swan Lake, Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Sleeping Beauty, and Coppelia. A long-time faculty member of Dance Center Evanston, she is also Head of the Ballet Department of Dancenter North in Gurnee. Victoria is a popular guest teacher for Thodos Dance Chicago and the Midwest Cecchetti Council. She has been a master teacher for the Chicago National Association of Dance Masters for nine seasons, teaching both students and teachers in the Training School. Victoria is proud to be training the next generation of littles to advanced students, sharing her love of all things ballet.

Ballet, Pointe

Julie Chapnick began her career classically trained in the Cecchetti ballet method. She studied with the Atlantic Contemporary Ballet, American Dance Machine and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. Julie received a BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and went on to earn an MA in Dance and Dance Education with a concentration in K-12 from NYU’s Steinhardt School of Education. Working with world-renowned teachers and choreographers alike, Julie performed in numerous works during her undergraduate and graduate studies. She danced with the New Dance Ensemble, 2nd Avenue Dance Company, New Dance Collective and American Dance Art with whom she performed at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. Julie has served as Director of summer dance camps and intensives, worked as a Ballet Mistress and has presented her choreography in dance festivals and regional competitions. She has taught for privately owned studios, the public school system and as a volunteer for community outreach programs. She was appointed Adjunct Dance Professor at Central Piedmont Community College and Johnson C. Smith University. Since moving to Chicago, Julie has had the pleasure of being a teaching artist at the School of Performing Arts, Academy of Dance Arts, Hubbard Street Dance Youth Program and Joffrey Academy, the official school of the Joffrey Ballet.