Alyssa began formal ballet training at age 9 after winning six months of free ballet lessons at Bountiful School of Ballet (BSOB) through a drawing. Financially, her family would have been unable to continue lessons, but the generous owners of BSOB took her under their wings and allowed her to train for free until she graduated from high school in their most advanced class. She now holds a BFA in Ballet and Teaching, and Masters of Business Creation from the University of Utah. Alyssa is ABT certified for Levels 1-3.
In 2015, she started Kids’ Community Ballet (KCB) with Laura Stewart, which then grew into Rise Up School of Dance in 2017. She loves directing and vision casting for the school.
She couldn’t be more overjoyed to have the honor of teaching and loving the students at Rise Up or more excited about what the future of Rise Up holds.
Shelley Bertelsen has joined our team as our Administrative Director. With a love for organization and a drive for improving systems and events, she is excited to come alongside the Rise Up Team to help with the administrative pieces. After graduating with a degree in Bilingual Education from the University of Arizona, she taught in the public schools for 4 years before choosing to stay home to raise her kids. With 25 years as a Household Executive and 15 years of home-educating 3 kids through highschool and working for the past two years in administration in a church setting, she is ready to put her skills to use for Rise Up!
Though Shelley has only taken one ballet class (taught by her daughter in her living room), she has spent the last 15 years learning and experiencing ballet through her 3 girls, who all danced through high-school. Two of them went on to pursue ballet degrees in college. She has spent numerous hours taxiing kids to and from class, discovering creative and productive ways to use wait time, parenting through the joys and disappointments of class placements and auditions and summer programs and dashing last minute to replace torn tights and lost costume jewelry during shows. She looks forward to building relationships with our dancers and their families to provide support in this adventure of ballet.
Savanna started ballet training at 13 at Adagio Ballet School of Dance in Arlington, Virginia. While there she studied ballet, modern, and jazz, supplementing with tap classes at another local studio. During her high school years, Savanna was lucky enough to gain performance experience as a supernumerary in professional touring productions of the Nutcracker at the Kennedy Center with both American Ballet Theatre and Ballet West. Savanna then joined her studio’s student company as a soloist, performing at the Virginia Dance Festival in Richmond, the American Girl Doll of the Year Launch Party in 2013, and competing at Youth America Grand Prix. Outside of ballet, she has also performed as a trainee with the contemporary Company Danzante and in the 2012 Cherry Blossom Parade as part of the Nation’s All-Star Tap Team. To expand her training and experience, Savanna attended summer intensives at Ballet West.
She graduated from Adagio Ballet in their top levels and as a first soloist in the Adagio Dance Company. She then moved to Salt Lake City and attended the University of Utah as a ballet major, where she met Alyssa! While in college, Savanna performed in 7 productions and choreographed her own piece. She spent a day on location with Emmy winning choreographer Bonny Story, shadowing and assisting on the production of a music video for Disney’s Sofia Wylie. Savanna also is certified to teach American Ballet Theatre’s National Training Curriculum in Pre-Primary through Level 3. She graduated in 2019 with degrees in Ballet Pedagogy, Psychology, and Nutrition.
Teaching has been fundamental to Savanna’s dance experience. She began assisting classes at the age of 15, and has loved teaching all styles of dance ever since. Savanna started volunteering at Kids’ Community Ballet in 2017, and joined the Rise Up staff in 2019. The love and encouragement she continues to receive from her dance teachers is something that Savanna hopes to give back to her own students in her teaching. She is immensely grateful for the opportunity to do just that in the atmosphere that Rise Up creates for its students.
April Diaz has joined our team as Partner Development Director. With a love for Rise Up School of Dance’s mission to “train with excellence, build community and see know, and love students”, April is thrilled to join the team. Dancing throughout her childhood and young adulthood, it is clear that she has a love and appreciation for the art and impact of dance. This love of dance combined with her experiences of living overseas among communities of diverse cultures, languages and economic status is the foundation of April’s passion to empower individuals and build bridges across barriers of any kind in order to build community.
April graduated with a degree, certification and license in Elementary Education, Spanish Teaching and Teaching English as a Second Language from Brigham Young University. She taught in the public schools and adult education for 5 years before choosing to stay home to raise her 3 kids. Throughout her 15 years as a full-time Stay at Home Mom, April has chosen to serve in the local community around her participating in Community Councils, leading women and youth organizations, and creating her own community co-op preschool. April looks forward to combining her love of dance and empowerment, bridge building, her experiences and acquired skills, to connect RUSD to the community and the community to Rise Up School of Dance. You can find April and her daughters dancing at RUSD throughout the week and participating in the monthly family events.
Amy received her early dance training at Ballet West Academy and Salt Lake Ballet Conservatory. To further her training, she attended several summer intensives, including Houston Ballet, Odyssey Dance Theater, and Alonzo King Lines Ballet.
After studying at Lines Ballet for the summer, she joined their two-year program as a trainee under the direction of Karah Abiog and Alonzo King. She has worked with a variety of choreographers, including Sidra Bell, Nathan Trice, Kevin Iega Jeff, Alonzo King, Maurya Kerr, Derryl Yeager, Robert Moses, Glenn Edgerton, and Gregory Dawson.
When it comes to teaching movement, she is versatile and offers ballet, jazz, contemporary, modern, improvisation, and composition. Amy has taught at Millennium Dance Complex, eMotion Dance, and Rowland Hall, in November 2015 she joined with Kids’ Community Ballet, and in 2017 joined the Rise Up staff. She has also choreographed her own work, which has been featured at Lines Ballet, Craft Lake City, and other local SLC productions. She is eager to teach and help build children up in love and confidence at Rise Up School of Dance.
Amelie received her dance training at The Studio of Classical Dance Arts in Racine, Wisconsin, where she studied for ten years. Her passion for ballet led her to summer programs at the Joffrey Ballet, the University of Utah, and Ballet West. Amelie enrolled in the ballet program at the University of Utah in 2016. While there, she had the opportunity to perform in ballets such as Les Sylphides, Le Conservatoire, and Swan Lake as well as world premieres by Penny Saunders and Christine McMillan. An interest in development led her to research the overlap between dance training and emotional expression and empathy, and the potential to integrate dance into existing therapies for psychosocial disorders with Kate Mattingly. She presented this research at the Utah Conference for Undergraduate Research and Research on Capitol Hill. Amelie currently works as a behavior therapist for children diagnosed with autism. Her interest in furthering healthy development of the mind and body within the bounds of ballet training broughty her to Kids Community Ballet, where she started volunteering in 2018, and led her to continue as a teacher for Rise Up School of Dance. She is thrilled to teach in an environment where love and support for students always comes first.
Laura Stewart: Bio Coming Soon
Abby received her training in Dallas, Texas at Ballet Academy of Texas and performed with Ballet Ensemble of Texas. She has attended summer intensives at Texas Ballet Theater, American Ballet Theater, Ballet West, University of Utah, and Zion Dance Project. She moved to Salt Lake City in 2020 to attend the University of Utah as a ballet and psychology double major. She is also the vice president of Healing in Motion Dance, an organization that provides free adaptive and rehabilitative dance classes. She unexpectedly fell in love with teaching after substituting a handful of classes and has continued with it since. She is excited about the mission and community of Rise Up and is grateful for the opportunity to grow as a teacher.
Erika started dancing in Tucson, AZ at a small studio called Double C Dance studio at age 4. Starting within Ballet and tap her passion for dance and expression through movement grew. As she grew up she became experienced in styles including jazz, acrobatics, hip hop, lyrical, contemporary, modern, and improv. After moving to Boulder, CO in middle school, Erika changed studios several times to find the right fit that cared not just about her dancing but about her as a person. Finally after moving away to college to study biomedical engineering and modern dance she found rise up and fell in love with their mission of “human first, dancer second.” She is so excited to open her heart to all her students and hopes to plant a passion of dance among all the dancers she teaches.
When she’s not dancing, you can find Erika cuddling her pet rabbits and cats or doing arts and crafts at home drinking an iced London fog. She is always around to listen or just give you a hug as well!
Sarenity has always had a love for dance. Since the age of six, she danced with various studios including Academy of Ballet Arts and Salt Lake City Ballet. Her primary interest was Ballet, though as she grew in her dancing she fell in love with Modern and Contemporary dance as well. In college, she continued her training in both Ballet and Modern, and received an Associate Degree of Science in Dance at Utah Valley University in May of 2022. Since then she’s taught with Daje Dance Academy, interned in Asia teaching dance in the fall of 2023, and now has found herself teaching at Rise Up School of Dance. She can’t seem to stop, so she performs as well with Salt Lake Ballet Cooperative! When she is not dancing, she loves being anywhere she feels creative – outside, playing her ukulele, or being with friends.
Moriya has been dancing in different styles since the age of 6. She began her training in Modern Dance with Children’s Dancer Theater (CDT) under the Tanner Dancer method. From there she moved onto Classical Ballroom training under Nick Bloxsom-Carter, as well as pursuing Contemporary and Ballet Training under Katie W. Hunter; each for 4 year increments. In both of these seasons of study, she choreographed her own pieces and performed them at benefits and productions. While working towards dance, she also engaged in theater, visual art, and vocal training. She has performed at the Shakespeare Festival for both dance and theater in multiple events and styles.
Moriya then pursued teaching the arts as her main course of interest. She was a visual art instructor with the Arte Primero program for ages 4-11; creating curriculum and lesson plans for all classes. She then was employed by the Egyptian YouthTheater in Park City under Jamie Wilcox as an instructor and director for ages 6-18. In both of the positions, she was able to integrate dance and movement into the lesson plans, which included choreography for productions and classes. She won best dance choreography in 2022 for her production of 4 AM by Jonathan Dorf.
Moriya is very excited to jump in to any and all needs around the studio at Rise Up School of Dance. Her experience with kids in both educational and volunteer settings has cemented her devotion for investing in children’s art education. She’s passionate about the role of teaching and the way it can affect the lives of both the child and the family, and is proud to be a part of such a talented, brilliant, and influential team.
Ellie Germaine: Bio Coming Soon!
Interested in joining our team? Email resumes to alyssa@riseupschoolofdance.com.
