Lisa received her ballet training at Pacific Dance Centre working her way through the Royal Academy of Dance exams, London England. She later graduated from Victoria Arts Collaborative Professional Division as a scholarship student and later joined the company. She continued her Ukrainian and character dance training with Veselka Ukrainian Dance School, and with the Volya Ukrainian Dance Ensemble, Edmonton Alberta. Lisa has had the opportunity to work with some of North America's foremost choreographers and teachers. She has performed through out Canada and the U.S. In 1990 she became Dance Director of Veselka school and co-director of Veselka Ukrainian Dance Ensemble. She was appointed Artistic Director of Veselka in 1994.

Kristen Lewis

Kristen is a dancer, yoga teacher, and performer with a lifetime's worth of movement training behind her---from competitive gymnastics as a child, to intensive dance training at the Halifax Ballet Theatre as a young teenager, through to a successful career as a distance runner in late teens and early twenties. Kristen began putting on shows for her friends and family at a young age, and has never really stopped. Her first play, David and Davida, appeared in 2002 at the Atlantic Fringe Festival, to rave reviews. She has since created a number of plays, performance pieces, and dance dramas as part of an ongoing engagement in the creative process of dance and theatre.

Kristen is pleased to be returning to the Salt Spring Arts Academy for a second year, sharing her love of movement and performance with the next generation. Kristen is a compassionate, attentive teacher whose goal is to instill in students a natural love of movement, while encouraging them to develop the confidence, self-discipline, and sound alignment habits that create the framework for a healthy,lifelong engagement in dance. She regularly enhances her skills by attending continuing education workshops and classes, both on and off-island.

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Cindy has been teaching movie-making workshops for children on Salt Spring Island since 2006. She received a B.A. in Art from California State University Hayward, with post-secondary studies in Filmmaking and certifications in Multimedia Authoring and Web Authoring.

Past careers have included working in the film industry, designing and maintaining websites, and as a college instructor of media studies and web design. Her other passion, beyond teaching kids how to make movies, is developing documentary projects of her own.

Sue has taught performing arts classes in Vancouver, Victoria and Saltspring for 35 years. Trained in ballet, tap, jazz, modern, contact improv and other forms of improvisation, music, voice and theatre, she also has a solid performing background that enriches her teaching process.

She has produced, directed and choreographed extensively and sings regularly with her jazz combo. Sue’s classes nurture the students’ individual artistic growth within a respectful and collaborative group dynamic.

Naomi Jason

Naomi was born and raised on Salt Spring and started dancing as soon as she could walk.  Her first teachers include Sue Newman, Robbyn Scott, Alisoun Payne and Constantine Darling and since leaving the island at 16, there have been many many others.  She has explored many styles of movement extensively, including: ballet, modern, competitive rhythmic gymnastics, jazz-funk, african, flamenco, yoga, qigong, sommatics, clowning and fire-spinning.  In 2004, she completed her professional training at LADMMI, an internationally recognized school for contemporary dance.  She spent the following 5 years soaking up the rich cultural and artistic environment that is Montreal.

Over the years, she has worked and apprenticed with various choreographers, taught dance, gymnastics and circus and choreographed and performed her own work.

Freshly back to the island from the big wide world, she’s excited to work with both children and adults to cultivate freedom of expression, grace, body-awareness, inspiration and joy!

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 Jill Smith