Meet the Teachers

Brandyn recently moved to Sequim with her family from Ohio.  She has a degree in Elementary Education and extensive training in dance.  Her training includes classical ballet techinque through pointe, choreography, and pas de deux.  She has trained at the Northern Virginia Dance Academy, The Washington School of Ballet, and the American Ballet Theatre.   Brandyn will be teaching both Classical Jazz and Ballet at Aspire.

  Joe began piano studies in Sequim at age 8 and by his teenage years was organizing bands and producing recordings of original songs with other musicians.  With an understanding and passion for music he quickly learned guitar, bass, mandolin and drums.  At Western Washington University he studied composition, graduating in 1999. 

     Based out of Massachusetts, Joe performed music and taught Montessori school for 3 years.  During that time he witnessed the magic of music in early childhood and went on to teach music at daycares, preschools and elementary schools.  He has been teaching guitar, piano, drums, mandolin, ukulele, autoharp, songwriting and a rock band classes for students of all ages for the past two years at a large nonprofit music center in Portland, Oregon. 

Christine began her dancing career at age 3 at a community college in Dallas, Texas.  At age 10 she was accepted onto the Amy Peel Dance Team in DesMoines, Iowa.  When she was 12 Christine was asked to teach and she continued teaching and competing at Amy Peel Dance Team until she graduated from high school.  She moved to Sequim a few years ago and has taught Hip Hop at SARC and at the Juan de Fuca Festival.  She was a member of the Peninsula College Dance Team in 2005 and 2006 and was the team captain in 2006.  She loves to both take dance classes and to teach them!

Gretchen has recently moved back to Port Angeles where she can entertain two of her greatest passions: teaching music to children and enjoying the great outdoors. Her love for music started at age 3 with violin lessons and continued throughout high school and college, where she performed in a wide variety of instrumental and choral ensembles.  She has also performed as an oboist with the Port Angeles Symphony Orchestra.  Gretchen received her bachelor’s in Music Education in 2002 and recently completed her Master’s in Education.  Her experience as a classroom music teacher and private instructor, coupled with a deep love for music, makes learning an exciting enterprise for young students as they play, sing, compose and create music as part of a fun and interactive process.

                                                                                          
Laurel has a Bachelor's Degree in Dance and a Master's in Health.  Laurel danced with the Wichita State Dance Company and the Wichita Ballet.  After college she continued to study dance and danced with the Metropolitan Ballet of Topeka, Kansas.  She also studied Modern Dance with a teacher who had studied with Martha Graham, the "mother" of Modern Dance.  Laurel loves dance, especially Ballet.

Laurel has been doing Pilates since 1980 and has been teaching Pilates to dancers for 13 years.  She had her own dance and fitness studio in Topeka where she taught Ballet to students ages 4 to Adult.  She has developed her own blend of  Yoga and Pilates that she calls Yogalates.  She is also a certified Zumba Gold instructor and teaches Body Sculpting to strengthen and tone major muscle groups. 

Michael is Aspire's "Music Man."   Michael has 25 years of experience in teaching music to students of all ages in public schools and privately.  He has taught students to play nearly every kind of instrument and voice and has succesfully directed many bands including Pep Band, Jazz Band, Jazz Choir, Concert Choir, Performance Choirs of all ages.  He has composed and arranged over 100 Band & Choir pieces.  He has produced over 125 music concerts and coordinated many Madrigal dinners. 

Michael is currently teaching Performance Choirs, voice, drums, strings and horns at Aspire.  During summer camps he offers special camp programs for musicians of all ages and abilities. 

Robin is a licensed Kindermusik and Simply Music educator. She has been teaching Kindermusik in Sequim since 1995 and Simply Music since early 2004. Robin studied Suzuki Violin in elementary school and began piano studies at age ten. She studied piano for eleven years through the completion of college and taught traditional piano lessons for 5 years before she found Simply Music.  She and her husband have four children.

Yvette Lantz is a dance instructor with almost 30 years of experience teaching, performing and choreographing Ballet, Jazz and Modern Dance.  Her early training was in Southern California at many private studios as well as Long Beach City College, Cal State University Long Beach and she majored in Dance at the University of Irvine.

     Moving to Southern Oregon she taught Jazz for 10 years at Rogue Community College and Jazz and Ballet at a private studio.  During this period Yvette continued to study dance at seminars and workshops with Bill Evans and Kitty Daniels, Eugene Ballet, Oakland Ballet, Rosella Hightower Institute in Cannes, France, Repertory Dance Theatre of Utah as well as ongoing classes with Richard Jessup, Penney King and many others.

     Yvette has been on the Olympic Peninsula for the past 2 years and has studied with Ling Hui and performed in her 2006 concert.  Yvette is a Registered Nurse and she feels this contributes to her expertise in teaching.  She especially enjoys encouraging musicality and progress in dance at any age. 

Alicia is very excited about offering Acrobatic Gymnastics to kids in Sequim. Alicia believes children with gymnastics experience will forever be better athletes. Focusing on strength with flexibility is the key to body awareness. She is a former competitive gymnast and gymnastic coach as well as a martial arts instructor and acrobat.

She is a graduate of neuromuscular integration program at the Soma Institute. Alicia Laxson has been married to her husband Gary for ten years, and they have a six year old son named Logan. The Laxson family relocated to Sequim from Tacoma three years ago. Alicia has a deep commitment to teaching children movement, and what their bodies are capable of.