Alumni

Maintaining balance between dance and everyday daily life is important to us. We believe our biggest accomplishment is instilling a love of dance with all of our dancers. Our alumni continue to dance throughout their lives. 

The love of dance has lead many of our students to pursue dance as a collegiate major as well as a career. We are proud of the accomplishments of all of our students. A few of our alumni are listed below.

Lauren, April, Liana, Jenny, Cleo, and Jenni

Alumni Spotlight

April Sykes, studio owner, and several Suncoast Academy of Dance alums recently visited Orlando to see Liana Blackburn perform. Liana (see her alumni bio below) is currently performing with the Kylie Minogue Aphrodite Les Folies world tour. She's been to 25 cities in Europe, 2 in Japan, Canada and is currently doing 11 cities in the U.S. and 3 in Mexico. Soon she will be performing in Asia, Africa, and Australia. Of course her performance was amazing!

Michelle Bronstein

Michele is currently attending Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA. where she is pursuing a B.F.A. in Dance. Michelle began dancing at 3 years old and joined her first performing dance company at Suncoast Academy of Dance. At 11 years old, her family relocated to the Chicago area where she spent 5 years performing with the Giordano Jr. Company, training with their professional dance troupe. While living in Chicago, she began attending Lou Conte Dance Studio, Hubbard Street Dance, River North Chicago Dance, and Visceral Dance Center workshops as well as summer dance intensive programs and the Jazz Dance World Congress. Michelle also had the pleasure of training under the direction of Jesse DeSoto (Dancing with the Stars) at Fred Astaire studios.

Jenny St. Arnold

After Suncoast, Jenny continued her dance education by attending The Edge, Millennium Dance Complex and American Performing Arts in California. Upon her return she enrolled at USF where she continued her studies in Ballet, Modern, and Improvisation while earning a BS in Industrial Engineering.

Jenny's performing experience includes: Super Bowl XXXV Pre-game Show, The Art & Spirituality Festival, The Oft Told Story Stage Production, and Katurah & Co. (a modern Dance company).

Jenny is currently a math teacher at Largo High School in Largo, Florida. She continues to teach dance with us.

Tracy Carter

Tracy toured the east coast performing and educating with Tap Team Two & Co. Her passion for dance, TV, and film  then led her to LA where spent the past 10 years. Tracy's professional credits include teaching hip hop and tap at the world famous Millennium Dance Complex & Debbie Reynolds Studios. She instructed celebrities such as Brittney Spears, B2K, Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl), and Corbin Bleu (High School Musical). She has appeared on shows for MTV, VH1, the WB, Oxygen & HBO.

Tracy recently returned to the Tampa Bay area. We are thrilled that she is back with our studio as a substitute teacher for tap and hip hop classes.

Kassie Brown

Kassie is a professional dancer and instructor in New York City. Most recently she was the Assistant Choreographer for Cirque du Soleil's vaudeville production "Banana Shpeel".  In addition to being part of the creative team, Kassie is a featured dancer as well as the Dance Captain.

Before Cirque du Soleil, Kassie was a dancer in Broadway Underground which was featured in a Capezio advertisement. She also works for Director / Choreographer Jared Grimes.

Kassie recently returned to Suncoast to choreograph Art in Motion's tap production dance for the upcoming competition year.

Liana Blackburn

Liana Blackburn spent 14 years studying at Suncoast Academy of Dance. After graduating from high school in 2004 she moved off the Los Angeles, California where she did a scholarship program at EDGE Performing Arts Center. Her training at the EDGE lead her to becoming a working professional dancer in LA. Since then she has been on a tour with Latin recording artist Chelo, appeared in the movie "Seventeen Again", danced next to Hugh Jackman on the television show "Viva Laughlin", and performed on the "So You Think You Can Dance" season 4 Finale. For the last two years Liana worked in Las Vegas Performing Wade Robson's Choreography in the Cirque Du Soleil show "Believe". She recently performed with Ricky Martin's South American tour.  

Lauren King

In addition to her education at Suncoast, Lauren, studied at Millennium Dance Complex/Work-Study, Broadway Dance Center (NYC), and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Hollywood. Lauren's professional credits include: Kids Dance LA, Surrey Festival of Dance, Just Chillin Stomp Girl, and Disney.

Lauren also recently returned to the Tampa Bay area. Suncoast feels very fortunate that our students still love our studio so much that they return to teach. Lauren is teaching ballet, lyrical, and jazz classes.

Madeline Fitzpatrick

Madeline Fitzpatrick is currently a student at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia as a Modern Dance major. She began dancing at age 6 at Suncoast Academy of Dance. There she studied for 12 years in many different idioms and performed with Art In Motion. Recently, Madeline has studied and worked with Kim Bears-Bailey, Zane Booker, Silvana Cardell, Curt Haworth, Myriam Herve-Gil, Christopher Huggins, Jennifer Binford Johnson, and Brian Sanders. She has performed Martha Graham's Acts Of Light under the direction of Elizabeth Auclair.

Jenni Carlson

Jenni has performed in several industrial shows in the Tampa Bay area including Nexus. She attended classes at the Edge and Millennium Dance Complex in California.

Jenni is currently a counselor at Carwise Junior High School in Palm Harbor. In her spare time, she teaches classes for Suncoast.

Cleo Sykes

Cleo began dancing at 6 years of age and was a member of Art In Motion for 10 years. She has auditioned for and attended summer programs with The Sarasota Ballet, Broadway Dance Center(NYC), The Orlando Ballet at The Patel Conservatory, and Florida State University. Cleo is currently attending Arizona State University with an academic scholarship, and is earning a B.F.A. in Dance Performance. She is also a member of the LA DanceMagic Company, allowing her to travel and work behind the scenes on the LADM convention circuit.

Ali Rosenstein

Ali, an AIM alumni, is currently attending Oklahoma City University majoring in Dance Pedagogy. She participated in the Broadway Theater Project as well as Tap Kids. Most recently Ali was accepted as a summer intern at Broadway Dance Center. After receiving her Bachelors degree, Ali plans to pursue her dance career on Broadway.

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2330 Curlew Rd, Palm Harbor,  FL 34683
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info: suncoastdance@knology.net

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