Co-Owner/ Instructor

Maddie is from Victoria, MN. She started her journey with the studio as a student like some of her fellow colleagues. Throughout her years of high school and college, she studied areas of dance in Modern, Continuum, Improvisation, Musical Theater, and Composition. The style of movement that found home within Maddie was the style of Continuum. This style of dance focuses on the fluidity of the movement and playing with spacial awareness, going in and out of the floor, and moving with curiosity.

She has been dancing for 18+ years, choreographing/ teaching for 10, and performing for about 8 years. She has a BA in Theater and Dance, a performing dance company called 8:20 Dance Company, and works during the day for Dance Studio Pro as a Customer Support Agent! She has choreographed for 10+ musicals and put on two main stage productions with her dance company.

She recently moved back from Orlando FL and is eager to share her experiences with the studio. Becoming a studio owner has been a forever dream of hers. She is thrilled to help cultivate and grow the students at the studio and show them how capable they are.

Co-Owner/ Instructor

Melissa has taught all levels of dance from creative movement to professional level classes for 25 years. She is proud to have been teaching in this community since 2003. Melissa earned her bachelors of arts degree in dance from California State University, Long Beach. She is grateful to have danced with many talented, modern contemporary choreographers in both Minnesota and California. She has also performed lead roles in Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, Beauty and the Beast, Paquita and Coppélia. Melissa has shown her choreography at American College Dance Festival, in the Minnesota Fringe Festival, Walker Art Center’s Choreographers’ Evening, Bryant Lake Bowl’s 9×22, and in Continental Ballet Company’s showcases.

“I have been in the dance studio my whole life. I have been blessed with phenomenal teachers. Annmarie Drake, Sue Gunness, Riet Velthusien, Douglas Nielsen, Sharon Kinney and Keith Johnson were among the most influential. I’ve learned from them so much more than dance. I’ve learned how great teachers can impact, inspire and pass on a life long love for movement to their students. It is my goal to make my students feel how I’ve felt in dance class, grateful, passionate, and connected. The studio is truly a magical place for me. It brings me so much fulfillment to share this with my students. Watching them grow as dancers and people is one of the greatest joys in my life.”

Instructor

Rachel Bonkoungou, a native Minnesotan holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She has performed with multiple dance companies including Bakersfield City Ballet, Eclectic Edge Ensemble, Rhythmically Speaking, Concerto Dance by Jolene Konkel as well as having produced four of her own evening-length works. A ballerina turned jazz and modern dancer, she has also had the privilege of teaching dance to all ages and genres for the past 15 years and was the Artistic Director of Waconia Center for Dance Arts in Waconia for six years. Outside of dance, she has a growing family, a growing garden, and a growing love of other creative projects including both videography and textile creations.

Instructor

Shelby began dancing at the age of seven after her mom assured her several times she would likely enjoy it. In high school, she joined a small ballet company in California and stuck with them through college. She has performed such roles as Rose Queen and Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker as well as Juliet in the Bakersfield City Ballet’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Upon moving to Minnesota in 2015, she joined Continental Ballet Company and danced various corps de ballet and soloist roles.

She was happy to end on a high note when she was cast as the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty. Shelby has taken classes from instructors around the country and attended dance festivals and honor classes with Regional Dance America. All of these opportunities and experiences created tools to better express the depth and passion in her approach to teaching.

Shelby has 15 years of teaching experience ranging in styles from ballet to improv to pointe to jazz. She loves to break down the technique of dance and build the strength necessary to consistently perform a movement with grace. She finds herself most happy when her students’ hard work is shown through the choreography of her imagination.

Instructor

Previous performing credits span 20 years in the US & Europe including: principle/soloist roles with Alternative Motion Project, Collide Dance Theater, Continental Ballet, Eclectic Edge Ensemble, St. Paul City Ballet & Szeged National Ballet, guest roles w/ Curio Dance, Dwight Rhoden, James Sewell Ballet, Jagged Moves, Jodi Melnick, Live Action Set, MN Opera, Offleash Area, Rosy Simas Dance Project, commercial work w/ Aveda, Cost Cutters & Sherwin Williams Paint, and over 50 plus independent choreographers. Other choreography credits include: Arbeit Opera's The Consul (also restaged at the UM School of Music-Minneapolis), Harvest Contemporary Dance Festival (Chicago), Die Winterreise w/ Opera singer, Justin Spenner, pianist Jerrod Wendland, and photographer Jeff Korte, Rhythmically Speaking & Renovate Choreographer's Evenings (Minneapolis), Reverb Dance Festival (NYC), Phipps Center Productions & Cultural Arts Grant awardee (WI), music videos/collaborations w/ Ada Jane, Abby Wolf, Matt Marka, Alex Kaufman, Dichotomy, Ben Seims, Eugine Roszo and 75 plus dance companies, university programs & schools . She graduated Magma Cum Laude from UW-Stevens Point with a BFA in Dance, BS in Arts Administration & International Studies and was awarded a Bukolt Scholarship. She currently resides in North Minneapolis with her fiancé' and 6 year old daughter who both greatly inspire her.

Instructor

Emily is originally from Visalia, California, but moved to Waconia at the age of 14. She has been dancing since she was 3 years old, focusing primarily on ballet up until high school where she discovered tap, jazz, and modern. In high school, she actually took classes from Melissa!

In 2022, she graduated from the University of Northwestern - St. Paul where she studied both mechanical engineering and dance, under the mentorship of Jolene Konkel. Throughout college, she enjoyed being a part of various theater productions (her favorite roles being a newsie in Newsies! and Tinkerbell in Peter Pan), and also led their student dance company. After graduating, she danced with BarreDanza in Ensenada, Mexico and was recently a part of DanceCo’s production of Dance Around Minnesota. She has taught dance at Waconia Center for Dance Arts, NorthEast Dance Center, and Parkside Church, and has subbed at a variety of other studios around the Twin Cities.

Emily now works full-time in downtown Minneapolis as a mechanical engineer and is a part of the team that designs the MSP airport. She is thrilled to be teaching in Waconia again and very excited to be a member of 8:20 Dance Company - Cultivate's company in residence.