Founder

Elyse, a south Florida native, has been training for over twenty years, since the young age of three, where she has since trained in all areas of study including ballet, tap, jazz, contemporary, hip-hop, pointe, modern, and musical theater. She has studied under Victoria Smith, Kim Wolfe, Natalie Trees, Barry Youngblood, Nick Bowman, among others. During this time she made her rounds in the competition and convention circuits, where she studied under Justin Giles' , in his summer intensives affiliated with the company "Soul Escape".

Assistant Director, Tap, Jazz & Musical Theatre

For ten years, Juliana trained and competed in tap, jazz, ballet, musical theatre and contemporary all throughout sunny South Florida. Her passion for performing arts led her to teach other dance forms like Hooping and Ballroom Dancing while attending college. She graduated from University of North Florida with a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Graphic Design and Digital Media. Juliana started a career in business management shortly after graduating. New to Savannah, Juliana is ecstatic to share her passions and talents with The STUDIO Savannah working along side long term friend Elyse.

Ballet Instructor

Linzy Flinn was born and raised in Savannah, Georgia where she trained at The Studio and Savannah Arts Academy. During her training, Linzy attended summer programs at The Joffrey Ballet, Orlando Ballet, The Rock School for Dance Education, Gelsey Kirkland Ballet, and Chautauqua Institution. For two years, she attended The Rock School for Dance Education year around program. In May 2017, Linzy graduated from the University of South Carolina, magna cum laude, gaining a Bachelor of Arts in dance performance and a minor in business administration.

Ballet Instructor

Armando Luna began his training in Houston, Texas with Margo Marshall then with Soili Arvola and Leo Ahonen. His professional dance career spans 35 years. He danced professionally with Ballet Austin, BalletMet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and Atlanta Ballet. He toured with Ballet Spectacular, performing with Rudolf Nureyev and Alexander Godunov. Mr. Luna partnered notable Ballerinas Cynthia Gregory in George Balanchine’s Divertimento No. 15 and Marianna Tcherkassky in Lynne Taylor-Corbett’s Great Galloping Gottschalk. Armando was principal teacher of the Atlanta Ballet Centre for Dance Education from 1998 to 2019. Many of his students have moved on to dance professionally with Atlanta Ballet, New York City Ballet, Houston Ballet, Alabama Ballet, and Texas Ballet Theatre.

Contemporary, Hip Hop

Story Dae was born in Savannah, GA, but raised in Clarksville, TN. She was a competitive dancer at Acro Dance Express for 12 years under the direction of Deleann Holt. She trained under many other talented instructors like Hannah Easley, Jon Carr, Travis Cooper, Sydney Moss, Tucker Knox, and many more. Story Dae studied contemporary, hip-hop, ballet, jazz, lyrical, improvisation, and choreography. Through her years as a competitive dancer, she was a 6-time solo national champion, 8-time solo title winner, and a Radix Core Performer. While in high school she got the opportunity to attend the Royal Flux Factor, where she trained under Jaci Royal, Audrey Case, and Kristen Russel. After graduating High School, Story Dae moved back to Savannah, GA where she is currently attending Georgia Southern University, teaching, choreographing, and working for Platinum National Dance Competition.

Ballet

Miss Vicki started dance at age 3 learning ballet through the Cecchetti technique. She moved with her family to England and was fortunate to attend the Royal Ballet School learning through their classical RAD technique. At 15 she returned to the USA and was an apprentice with the Montgomery Ballet where she was introduced to the Vaganova Technique. It was here she taught her first dance class at 16 years of age. She had found her passion and continued to teach for 40 years before retiring. She attended Southern Illinois University majoring in Dance and World History. After a brief time as a substitute teacher in Idaho she returned to teaching ballet. She has performed with the Royal Ballet, the Montgomery Ballet, St. Louis Muny Opera and Scope a modern dance Company. She has taught in Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi, California, Idaho, Virginia, Georgia(twice),Panama and England.

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Hip-Hop

Caelen Goudy started dancing at the age of 5 in Chicago, IL, and has trained in a variety of genres ever since. She spent her childhood in the realm of competition dance, but it wasn't until a few years after moving to Nashville, TN in 2015 that her love for hip hop really took off. She has had the opportunity to train under some incredible working professionals, such as Nick Bass at DC Dance Factory, and Jordan Lozoya at both Millennium Dance Complex and now AREA 54. These instructors have worked for artists like Michael and Janet Jackson, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Tyler Hubbard, and much more, allowing Caelen to understand more about life in the entertainment industry, both on stage/set, as well as behind the scenes.

Caelen currently attends the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she is majoring in Graphic Design and training on the Nectar Hip Hop Dance Team. She aspires to become a professional commercial and hiphop dancer first and foremost, but also has big hopes for her side passions of modeling, art direction, and acting.

Intro 1 + 2 Ballet | Tap

Summer Fuller has been dancing for nearly 23 years, starting at the age of 4 years old. Growing up in Wilmington, North Carolina, she studied many dance styles such as ballet, tap, jazz, clogging, hip hop, acrobatics, musical theater, lyrical, and contemporary. Summer competed throughout the state in North Carolina, as well as Georgia, and South Carolina. During college at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, she was a part of a hip hop dance performance crew called Physical Graffeeti and traveled and competed with the team. Post graduation, Summer continued her love of dance by teaching students of all ages. She has always utilized dance as not only a way to stay physically active, but as a coping outlet and passion. Summer is a RecreationTherapist by day and utilizes dance and movement as well as other leisure outlets to teach people different coping skills. Summer is excited for another year of teaching dance at The Studio in order to share her passion with kids who love to dance!ion goes here

A Savannah native, Angela Lukas has been classically trained in ballet since the age of three. She studied under the direction of Veronica Moretti Niebuhr at the Studio until graduation from Savannah Arts Academy, where she majored in Ballet. Along with her Studio training, Angela has studied with Complexions Contemporary Ballet Company, The Rock School for Dance Education, Atlanta Ballet, and Virginia School of the Arts. She has worked with instructors such as, Finis Jhung, Adam Sage, Dominique Angel, Ivan Pulinkala, Lauri Stallings, and Reiko Kimura. To continue her dance education, Angela attended Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, where she received her Bachelor of the Arts degree concentrated in Ballet, alongside her minor in the French Language. Together, she uses the French speaking language and ballet terminology to educate dancers for a well-rounded experience, as well as ballet conditioning for strength training.

Began her dance career at the age of 3 in Miami, FL and started tapping at 7. After quickly falling in love with tap dance, she knew it was her ultimate fave! In working with some of the greatest tappers such as Aaron Tolson, Maud Arnold, and Derrick Grant, she is excited to teach this summer and show some of the work they taught her.

Aubrey began dancing at the age of 12 and it quickly became her new found passion! Aubrey started competing in her second year of dancing and has competed ever since. She is trained in all areas of dance including ballet, contemporary, jazz, lyrical, hip-hop, tap, acro, etc. Aubrey has had the opportunity to train at Joffrey Ballet School for the past two summers and has been invited to join their year round program. She started assisting classes at The Studio Savannah at age 14 and is excited to have the opportunity to teach this year! Aubrey is currently a senior at Savannah Arts Academy and looks forward to pursuing dance in her future!

Noah has trained 10+ years in Ballet, specializing in partnering performance. He has performed with Atlanta Ballet, Columbia City Ballet and The Studio Savannah. Noah has attended the University of South Carolina’s summer intensive for two years in a row. As a STUDIO alumni, Noah is excited to teach our Boys Ballet program which is free to all male students!

A Savannah native, she began her training with Lillian O’donovan school of ballet. She trained under Karena Brock and John Carlisle at Ballet South until high school graduation. Her training was enhanced during this time by Columbia City Ballet, William Starrett, dancing lead roles like The Dew drop Fairy and Russian Hot Coffee in the Nutcracker. She also performed in the world premiere ballet, Where the Wild Things Are under direction of Septime Weber and Maurice Sendak. Summer Intensive training includes Atlanta Ballet, Atlanta Ballet Terpiscorps, and American Repertory Ballet. She graduated from UNC-Charlotte with a B.A. in dance as well as performing with the dance team, The Gold Dusters. As former owner of The Studio, Ms. Heath has trained many local dancers, producing studio recitals and training students for competitions like YAGP, summer intensives and placement into The Savannah Arts Academy. She has coached dancers for several local Dancing with the Stars fundraising competitions. . Ms. Heath loves all things dance and looks forward to teaching again at the Studio!

An alumni of The Studio, Karilena began dancing at three years old. Training under MaryAnn Duffy Heath, Elyse Rush, and Karen Burns, she is experienced in classical ballet, contemporary, and modern dance. She also trained with The Ballet School (Heidi Spivey Carter) and Savannah Arts Academy (Jay Jernigan, Christine Shawl) before joining The Joffrey Ballet School’s (New York) year round ballet program. During her time training with the Studio and The Ballet School, she taught classical ballet for various ages. Throughout her career, she has attended summer intensives with The Rock School of Dance, Next Generation Ballet, Joffrey Ballet School, and Gelsey Kirkland Ballet School, as well as performed soloist roles in various classical ballets and originally choreographed works. Karilena earned her Bachelor’s degree in Public Relations from St. John’s University, where she continued dancing in her spare time at multiple studios in New York City. She is currently pursuing her Master’s of Business Administration at Georgia Southern University. She is very excited to return to teaching the next generation of dancers!

Bio coming soon!

Acro/Jazz/Tap Instructor

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania native starting dancing at the age of two. She studied ballet, tap, jazz, musical theatre , Hiphop, acting, singing and performed professionally with Pittsburgh Musical Theatre. She then attended and graduated from The American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York City. After graduating she performed in various professional performances around the country and began teaching in between productions. Mindy has choreographed musicals in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey. She also has won numerous Choreography and high placement awards while working in Nashville. Mindy is thrilled to be in Savannah and to encourage the passion, drive and joy she has for the arts into its next generation of performers.

Ballet Instructor

Karen Burns trained at The Washington Ballet, Joffrey School of Dance and The Ballet Intensive from Moscow. She danced with the Washington Ballet, The Scapino Ballet of Amsterdam, The Tampa Ballet , The Colorado Ballet and The Nashville Ballet, as well as guesting with many regional ballet companies and opera companies. She has been teaching and choreographing for over 30 years.

Ballet Instructor

Cristin Jernigan began her training in Savannah, Georgia, at Ballet South, under the direction of Karena Brock Carlyle. She was also a student and company member at Hilton Head Dance Theater and Savannah Dance Theater. After graduating from high school, Cristin attended the University of Georgia where she received a degree in Child and Family Development and minor Dance Education. At UGA, she was accepted into the UGA Ballet Ensemble and had the opportunity to dance lead roles in the full length La Sylphide, La Bayadere, Nutcracker, and Giselle. In 2002, Cristin re-staged and performed the full length Giselle with the UGA Ballet Ensemble. Upon graduating, she joined Atlanta Festival Ballet Company where she performed lead roles in their productions of The Nutcracker, Beauty and the Beast, Carmina Burana, and The Little Mermaid. Cristin has been Artistic Director of The Cathedral Academy of Performing Arts, The Madison Dance Company, and Metro Movement Ensemble. She has staged many works including Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, as well as choreographing full length originals such as The Who, Who Gained Hope (an adaptation of Dr. Seuss’s “Grinch”) and Snow White. Cristin is glad to be back in her hometown of Savannah with her husband and three children, She has been a professor of dance at Armstrong State University, Savannah State University, and Savannah Arts Academy.