Staff Biographies
Bios information to follow..
With training in tap, ballet, jazz and ethnic dancing, Monica has been choreographing musicals for all ages from preschool to high school to adult for over thirty years. She also choreographed the Olympic Diving and Acrobatic show at Sea World.
She studied dance in New York with Wayne Ciliento, Onna White, Tommy Tune, Alvin Ailey and Graziela Daniele. She also studied African movement and dance while in Harare, Zimbabwe when she performed for the Harare International Arts Festival.
She is also on staff as a teacher of teach tap, ballet, jazz and musical theatre dance at The Beck Center for the Arts in Lakewood. She still directs and choreographs for many of the theatres in the area.
Jay J. attended the Center State Dance Studio, Cleveland, for Jazz from 1992 to 1993; Sharon's School of Dance, Cleveland, for Jazz and Tap from 1990 to 1992 and Lauray's School of Dance, Cleveland, for Jazz and Tap from 1989 to 1990.
He holds teaching qualifications from:
- Norene Londregan School of Dance - Hip Hop/Jazz Funk/Tap
- Lisa Wilhelm Academy of Dance - Hip Hop/Jazz Funk/Tap
- Zahnow Dance - Hip Hop/Jazz/Tap
- Mr. Neylons Dance Studio - Hip Hop/Jazz Instructor
- Dance Dance Dance Studio - Hip Hop/Rhythm Tap
- Sudio 82 - Hip Hop
- Spotlight Dance Studio - Tap Dance
- Right Path Foundation - Hip Hop
Rachel Holden-Foore began dancing at a young age in New York under the instruction of her mother, Margaret Holden. She continued her training in Cleveland as well as the Nashville area.
Upon graduating high school, Rachel entered into the University of Akron’s Dance Program. While attending the university she was trained by former members of The Martha Graham Company, Pennsylvania Ballet, and Jennifer Muller Company. After completing her second year, she was offered a contract with Cleveland Contemporary Dance Theatre where she worked with choreographers such as Garry Abbott, Peter Kalivas, Germaul Barnes, Linda Kahn, Young Park, and many more.
Rachel has been teaching throughout the Northeast Ohio area for the past 8 years.
Brian has been involved with gymnastic for over 22 years. In high school, he was the All Around champion in the Ohio Sports Festival state games. He attended the Ohio State University and was a member of the OSU gymnastics team and cheerleading squad. Later, Brian was the third runner up in the US National Aerobics Regional Championships. At the age of 15, he started coaching gymnastics to pay for his own personal gymnastics lessons. Since then, Brian has been a multiple Junior Olympic national team coach.
He has attended numerous state, regional, and national congresses, seminars and training camps throughout the US. As a result of his experience, he has produced nearly a hundred state champions, dozens of regional champions and several national qualifiers. Including two Junior Olympic National Champions.
Brian has also been a 6 year member of SAFMOD Performance Ensemble. This multi-media modern dance company performs various styles of dance and circus arts including stilt dancing, aerial fabric, break dancing, capoeria, butoh, non-traditional partnering, acrobatics and many more.
Brian currently loves coaching gymnastics and acro at Above The Barre Dance and Gymnastics. You may also know him as Soneboy (a singer/songwriter working on his debut album). His album should be ready for release in early 2009.
Amanda resides in North Ridgeville with her husband Craig, newborn baby girl Kristiana, and dog Lexi.
She currently teaches Lyrical and Jazz at Above the Barre, and also co-directs the competition teams. Amanda has been teaching and choreographing for ten years, and performing for over twenty.
For the past five years she has been performing for Cedar Point Live Entertainment. In her third season performing she was nominated “Best Female Perfomer” from IIAPA.
A Cleveland native she has been seen in such productions as:
- “Peter” in Peter Pan
- “Rizzo” in Grease
- “Annie” in Chicago and
- her award winning performance as “Z’s Favorite” in Will Roger’s Follies.
Brittany is newly married and lives near Akron with her husband Mike, bunny Maple, and cat Villain.
Brittany has had training at Carmella's Dance Studio for over ten years where she was a teacher's assistant for half of her time there. She studied Jazz, Tap, and Ballet and later Ballroom and Modern when she was accepted to the University of Akron, where along with studying dance she now majors in Small Business Management.
Brittany has choreographed and directed for local community theaters and high schools as well as taught classes for art festivals and events in her area. After choreographing and teaching for a time, she formed her own dance company, The Twilight Dancers. The company does many styles of dance, but has a strong focus on Modern.
Brittany is involved in theater and has been in productions such as Cinderella, Bye Bye Birdie, The Secret Garden, Oliver, and has held leads in shows such as The Miser and The Man Who Came To Dinner. Brittany is new to the Above the Barre team and looks forward to having fun and teaching her students to love to dance.
Erin Quellhorst is originally from New Bremen, Ohio and currently resides in North Royalton. She has been studying dance for 23 years. She graduated from Eastern Michigan University with a Bachelor of Music Therapy degree and a Dance Performance major. This is Erin’s third year at Above the Barre Dance Studio, where she is the Tap Dance Director and Competition Team Choreographer. She has developed the tap program and created syllabi for every tap class for both school and competition levels of tap dance.
Throughout her college career, she performed at least three times a year with the Eastern Michigan Dance Program in their annual dance concerts. She’s also had the privilege of performing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the National Dance Education Organization Conference. She was recognized as a top student in the dance and music departments and given the opportunity to represent both departments in the University Symposium Concert for four years, a prestigious and invitation-only performance opportunity. In college, she studied jazz, ballet, pointe ballet, tap, and hip hop. During high school, she studied with two local dance studios for 15 years and focused her studies on jazz, ballet, pointe ballet, tap, tumbling and lyrical during those years.
In addition to her dance training and experience, Erin is a Board-Certified Music Therapist. She is a music therapist and administrator at The Cleveland Music School Settlement in University Circle on Cleveland’s east side. Erin’s future dreams and aspirations are to use her talents to help the special needs population in music therapy and dance. Erin is thrilled to be in the Cleveland area and very excited to share her passion of dance with the dedicated students at Above the Barre Dance Studio.