I have danced longer than I can remember, starting at the age of 2 in 1999, and I never stopped! My dance training began at Barbara Stewart’s in Hannibal, until at age 9 I joined Karen’s Dance Academy, where I began dancing at a competition level within a year. I received excellent training from Karen Frantz, and began job-shadowing her and learning how to teach at age 15.

In the competitive sphere, I am grateful to have won many competition 1st places with my team at Karen’s Dance Academy, traveling to St. Louis and Chicago, and for the multiple solo performances I took to national competitions and competed with in Orlando and Las Vegas, including winning first place with my tap solo at the national competition in Orlando, Florida run by Tremaine Dance Competitions.

In the dance convention sphere, I am grateful to have been awarded many dance convention scholarships over the years from the conventions, Tremaine Dance Competitions and West Coast Dance Explosion, as well as LADM. These scholarships enabled me to attend not just one convention each year, but several every year, and I recognize this extra training as indispensable for my growth. I also am grateful for all the times my childhood dance studio owner augmented our training by bringing in guest instructors from across the country, and went out of her way to provide us with excellent training both in developing herself and in broadening our experiences.

Into my pre-professional experience, I won the ELITE scholarship award with the West Coast Dance Explosion convention and joined their new Fuzion Dance Company. I am proud to be one of the first year members of this company, and am very thankful for the advanced training opportunities I received with the West Coast Dance Explosion staff, in addition to the years of training I had and continued to receive through attending the Tremaine Dance Conventions and their excellent staff. Through these two conventions, I received the opportunity to learn from professionals who were and are performers in the Super Bowl halftime shows, in movies, performers in Dancing with the Stars, in commercials, performing on Broadway, teaching at prestigious dance academies, winning national dance industry awards, traveling the world with shows, and dancing in music videos and live performances with a plurality of famous musical artists. Additionally, I had the opportunity to train alongside and develop friendships with a variety of amazing dance-arts performers who I have had the joy to watch go on to become Rockettes, make it far into the World of Dance competition, get jobs with touring musical artists, succeed in getting commercial jobs, go to Julliard, and become instructors at dance conventions across the country. I am proud of all of them.

My professional experience: I began teaching classes and job-shadowing my aunt, Karen Frantz, at her studio, “Karen’s Dance Academy,” at age 15, and I have continues with a succession of 11 years of experience teaching students the dance-arts. Yet as I completed my time with the amazing training and relationship building experiences I described in the previous paragraph, I faced a crossroads moment. I was offered a dance-performance job with a cruise line while I was in Las Vegas for my final year of dancing with the West Coast Dance Explosion Fuzion Company. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for, a first step on a professional journey that would have launched me in the same trajectory as my dance company friends, but I had concerns about what I would be leaving behind. My aunt, who owner Karen’s Dance Academy, was experiencing troubling medical conditions which were causing her to have to step back from teaching as many classes. I was stepping in and teaching about 20 classes every week because of this. I also was taking on many hours of office work to keep things running smoothly as she needed to focus on her health. I was concerned about what accepting a short notice offer to work a dance performance job on a cruise ship would do to her and all of the students I cared about back home. I sought God for what He would have me do, and I felt that it was His will that though I wished to accept the job it was His will for me to stay and help my aunt, so that her dance academy did not fall apart, and so that it would continue to be there for all of the kids for whom it was such a big part of their lives.

So I turned down the offer to dance on a cruise ship, and whatever other opportunities that would have afforded, and I set myself toward keeping my aunt’s dance academy from falling apart. To the degree that I was able, I gave every effort I could toward that end, taking on more as my aunt’s health required her to take on less. This continued until my aunt made the decision to retire at the end of 2022. I prayed until I felt it was the right direction for me to start WiLoKi Dance Center to continue sharing the art of dance.

And here we are now! Half-way through our first year, but 24 years into my journey with dance, and 11 years into my experience teaching others. I am excited for things to come, not only to continue the legacy of what my aunt was doing, but to build on that legacy, and to use everything I learned from my years studying with all the amazing artists from West Coast Dance Explosion and Tremain Dance Competitions.

We are growing fantastic programs in all of the normal dance studio genres, and then doing more!

Thank you, if you took the time to read this, and if you skipped to the bottom, these are my final words: This dance studio is the product of my 24 year journey with dance, and while my friends paths led them to join some of the most prestigious dance groups across the world, I get the joy of putting all of the things we learned into creating one of the best dance centers in the country.

I invite you to join us. I invite you to join me. Come dance with us, be a part of something excellent, be a part of something amazing, be a part of WiLoKi Dance Center and see where it takes you.