INTENSIVE TEACHER BIOS

Sara Rohs - Artistic Director MCD, Professional Dancer, Former Brewers Diamond Dancer, Dance Competition Judge, Teacher at Synergy Dance Academy, Madtown Hip Hop Crew, Choreographer

Raised in Minnesota, Sara trained at many Twin Cities dance studios including Zenon Dance Company, Ballet Arts, Stage Door Dance for Performing Arts, The FIRM, Dance Spectrum, and the Minnesota Conservatory for the Arts. She continued her dance education by becoming a member of the Augsburg College Dance Team, later becoming its captain for three years and then its coach for four years. She was a member of the Swarm Performance Team with the Professional Lacrosse League in MN.

Sara started the Ascending Star Dance Team in 2004 and was the director and dancer 3 years. Sara taught for Just for Kix summer camps and hosted workshops with the Augsburg College Dance Team. She was hired to dance professionally for various events.

After moving to Madison, Sara took courses with the UW Madison Dance Department. She danced with the Milwaukee Brewer’s Diamond Dancers for two seasons and was a member of the Madison area SweatShop Hip Hop Crew.

Sara founded the Madison Contemporary Dance Company (MCD) in 2010. In 2011 Sara started the monthly Madison Community Dance Newsletter to connect dancers with local opportunities.

Sara completed Lisa Howell’s Teacher Training Workshop in 2015. Sara has guest taught dance and choreographed for many dance studios and dance teams including college and professional dance teams and professional dance companies. Sara took a Love and Logic course and continues to study and apply methods to help children and adults thrive in learning environments.

She currently teaches at Synergy Dance Academy and judges dance competitions throughout Wisconsin. Sara also directs the Majestic Hip Hop Crew with Papa Kobina Brewoo. In 2022 Sara started the MCD Youth Program, giving student dancers and opportunity to learn, create, perform and build community.

Kate Huskey- Assistant Director MCD, Professional Dancer, Certified Pharmacy Technician (CPhT)

Kate was born and raised in Madison, WI. She has been dancing since 4 years old at A Step Above Dance and Music Academy studying all styles of dance: Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, Tap, Hip Hop, Lyrical, and Modern. She also attended several dance intensives throughout those years: Inaside Dance Chicago, River North Dance Company, and has done the MCD summer intensive 4 times.

Kate is the Assistant Director for Madison Contemporary Dance (MCD) and has been dancing with MCD for 6 years. Now living in Ocean Springs, MS, she is excited to see how her dance career grows and evolves along with MCD.

Papa-Kobina Brewoo - Professional Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher - Express Yourself, Teacher at Synergy Dance Academy, Founder, and Director of the Hitterz Collective

Papa-Kobina Brewoo, or Kidd Blaze, was born and raised in Accra, Ghana and moved to Madison, WI in 2001 with his family, in hopes for better education and more opportunities to help his family back home. It was in the 8th grade that he found his love for hip-hop upon stumbling across the TV show America's Best Dance Crew. Inspired by how the dancers expressed themselves through movement and music, he began watching YouTube videos as a start on his journey to becoming a hip-hop dancer. Since then, Kobby has appeared on MTV's Made, auditioned for ABDC, AGT, WOD and signed with DanceOn Network. On top of that, Kobby continues to win countless awards at competitions throughout the midwest. He feels blessed by all the opportunities he has had and continues to work towards earning his stripes as a dancer. Kobby co-teaches the Madtown Hip Hop Crew with Sara Rohs.

Kobby is the founder and CEO of the Hitterz Collective whos mission is to provide a positive atmosphere where creative minds at all levels can learn, teach, network, and express themselves freely through artistry while being mindful of cultural history and to support the development and growth of the local art communities. The goal is to offer a platform and resources for educational growth, as well as to expand on the advanced repertoire of Performance, Music and Visual Arts.

Molly Gehrmann - MCD Alumni, Dance BA, Recipient of Loyola University's Provost Fellowship in 2017, Choreographer

Molly Gehrmann is a dancer, performer, choreographer and educator based Madison, WI and New York City.

Born and raised near Madison, Wisconsin, she received her training locally at Virginia Davis School of Dance and continued her training at Loyola University Chicago's Dance Program where she graduated with her Bachelor's Degree in Dance and minor in Musical Theater.

Molly recently graduated from the Professional Semester at Broadway Dance Center in New York City where she trained with world renowned choreographers such as Matthew Steffens and Andrew Wilson, and performed works of Emily Greenwell, Marc Kimelman, and Maleek Washington.

Molly has performed with New York Theater Barn and in numerous concerts and festivals in the Chicago area. She is an ambassador for Chicago The Musical with theaterMAMA and is an artist of RAW: Natural Born Artists in Chicago. Additionally, Molly trained and performed with the Mandala Dance Company in Rome, Italy.

Along side performing, Molly has a love for fashion and styling and spending time with her family and friends.

Lilly Crochet - MCD Company Member, Teacher at Synergy Dance Acadmey

Lilly Crochet grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and began her dance journey at three years old. She trained at West Side Performing Arts and later continued her training at Synergy Dance Academy. She studied ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, contemporary, pointe, and musical theater. Lilly competed in dance for many years, and this allowed her the opportunity to travel around the country to learn from many different instructors. Also, in high school she competed for her high school “poms” team. Lilly graduated in 2019 as a four year member of the school dance program, captain of that team, and assisted in most of the choreography.

During her time on the competition stage, Lilly fell in love with one convention in particular, Tremaine Dance Conventions and Competitions. She auditioned a handful of times to be on their performance company of assistants, and she finally made it when she was 15. She spent one year as an apprentice, but was quickly moved up to company member her next year in the program. She spent the rest of her high school career as a member and even completed two more years after as an alumni member traveling with the company as well.

In the fall of 2019, Lilly moved to New York City to attend college at The American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She studied there for two years to complete the conservatory program in Dance Theater. While in school, she specialized in dance, but also studied singing and acting to help her pursue her dreams of one day dancing on Broadway.

Nowadays, you can find Lilly teaching almost every day at Synergy Dance Academy. She teaches all styles of dance to all ages of students; however, she specializes in jazz, contemporary, tap, ballet, and musical theater. This passion for teaching and choreographing, albeit newly discovered, is not one that Lilly sees going away anytime soon. She channels her passions by helping run the same dance team that she used to compete for. She choreographed many of their dances ranging from solos to large production numbers. She loves traveling with the team to all of their competitions and is enthused and motivated in growing the next generation of young artists.

Taylor Manney - MCD Company Member, Teacher at Life Dance Academy

Originally from Las Vegas, NV, Taylor received her classical ballet training through the Royal Academy of Dance and studied Modern, Contemporary, Tap, Jazz, and Musical Theatre at the Las Vegas Academy of Performing Arts.

In 2014 Taylor graduated from Point Park University with a B.A. in Dance. Her professional experience includes performing and being dance captain in multiple musicals including “Hairspray”, “West Side Story”, “Cats”, “How To Succeed In Business”, and “Beauty and The Beast”; working for Spirit Productions/Dublin Worldwide in “Dance Inferno”; and performing as a Dancer/Aerialist for Royal Caribbean Productions.

More recently she performed as a soloist in "The Nutcracker" and "Drakula" for StageWorks Productions. In the past, Taylor has been fortunate enough to perform in pieces choreographed by Kirby Reed, Christopher Huggins and Blake McGrath, and toured with Dance Olympus as a teacher’s assistant.

Transitioning out of the professional dance world and into the fitness/rehab industry, Taylor is certified in P.M.A. Pilates Mat and Apparatus, Bootybarre, Fascial Stretch Therapy and Neuro Kinetic Therapy.

For the last seven years she has worked at Life Dance Academy in Janesville teaching all styles of dance to children and adults. Taylor also co-directs and choreographs for LDA's award-winning competition team.

She is so honored to be a part of Madison Contemporary Dance where she can be further inspired as an artist, dancer, and teacher.

Sydney Blashe - MCD Professional Dancer and Choreographer, Teacher at Vera Dance Academy

This is Sydney’s 2nd year dancing with Madison Contemporary Dance Company.

Sydney has been dancing since she was six years old at the following studios; Barb’s Centre for Dance, Ignite Dance Studio, and Vera Academy of Dance and Gymnastics. She has been studying many styles including Tap, Jazz, Ballet, Lyrical, Contemporary, Modern, Acro, Hip Hop, and Pom.

Throughout Sydney’s high school career she has attended several dance conventions including MCD’s summer intensive program and DX Event’s conventions. DX Event’s convention also invited Sydney to be an assistant instructor which Sydney accepted for the 2021 convention season.

While performing with her studio’s competition teams Sydney has received many awards for her dancing including three solo titles and several group titles.

In addition to training and competing Sydney has also developed an affinity for teaching and choreographing since she was fourteen.

Over the last four years she has been teaching and choreographing competition dance and has already received awards for her choreography.

Antione Williams - Professional Street Styles Artist with The Hitterz Collective

Anitone is a street style dancer that specializes in multiple styles like Krump, hiphop, popping, tutting and etc. He has been dancing for almost 6 years and love's to battle, showcase, and share energy in the dance world! Outside of dance he enjoys anime, traveling and eating great tasting food.

Antione is most excited about being a part of a very talented group this season and having a consistent schedule of growing as a professional dancer in his career.

Sonteé Duncan - MCD Guest Artist

Sonteè is a 21 year old dancer who had her sights out to dance in Madison in which she took a leap to two years ago. She started at Barrio where she partnered with Papa Kobina for various events which led to them inviting her into The MCD & HITTERZ collaboration where she gratefully joined.

She now teaches Lyrical and Acrobatics and is also looking to take up Ballet to get back in touch with her foundations.

As a child, she did Praise Dancing, Ballet and Tap and gymnastics up into Middle School/ High School. Where she focused Primarily on Commercial dance Hip Hop, jazz, Latin (Bachata

& Salsa) and Orchesis (Contemporary) and various other sports including Gymnastics and Poms etc.

She's now focusing on advancing in the commercial dance world and the freestyle street dancing world and eventually combining the two to be a forced to be reckoned with but all in due time where time will tell who prevails.

Marin Johnson- Professional Dancer, Forte Studios Owner

Marin has enjoyed being a professional dancer, choreographer and dance educator throughout the US and abroad since 1992. As a dancer, Marin has shared the stage with artists such as Brenda Lee, Wynonna Judd, Lee Greenwood, Pam Tillis, Steve Winwood and more. She has been featured as part of an adage couple as well as a soloist for several main stage theaters, television specials, theme parks, pageants, music videos, corporate conventions, etc. Her television credits include videos and specials for CBS, CMT, TNN, TBN, VH-1 and local networks in the areas of TN, GA, PA and SC.

Behind the scenes, Marin has choreographed several large scale production numbers for companies such as Radio Shack, Office Depot, Information Technologies and Redken, as well as for main stage shows such as Tribute in Concert, Superstars Live in Concert, and Country Tonight Theatre in Pigeon Forge,TN. Additional choreography credits include Jigsaw Entertainment's "Calling All Classics", Celebrity Cruise Lines (Assistant Choreographer), WSB Promotions, Music Theatre of Madison's "Floyd Collins" and several college and high school show choirs and dance teams.

As an educator, Marin has worked with all ages and skill levels from 3 year old beginners to adult working professionals. She has been a guest artist in TN for several area dance programs as well as nationally for the Energy Source Dance Company. Johnson also served as a faculty instructor for Columbia State Community College's Commercial Arts Program in Franklin, TN. For four years, Marin and her husband Wes successfully owned and operated A Step Ahead School of Performing Arts in Lavergne, TN, just outside of Nashville. The pair also directed, taught and wrote shows for Cannon County Arts Center's summer intensive workshops.

Marin has a BA Degree in Dance from Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. She has studied with former Radio City Rockette Jean Kettell as well as with Nashville School of Ballet, Gary Harrison, TN Dance Theater, Royal Academy of Dance, TN Association of Dance, and Lou Conte Studios. She is a certified member of Dance Masters of Wisconsin and continues to educate herself though dance conventions and regular trips to Chicago.