Faculty - Elan Dance Arts - London, Ontario

SHAWNA Kwan, Hons. BA Kinesiology, ADAPT Certified
Director & Owner

Shawna has built an impressive reputation as a dance instructor and choreographer over the past 10 years. She trained for nine years in tap, jazz and ballet at The Greta Leeming Studio of Dance in Ottawa. She has successfully taught across Ontario, Quebec and the Bahamas and is now based in London and pleased to be opening Élan Dance Arts. She has recently completed the three year ADAPT program where she is now an ADAPT certified teacher. Shawna also has her honors degree in Kinesiology from the University of Western Ontario (UWO) where she studied common athletic injuries and can use her knowledge of anatomy to more accurately train her dancers. For five years she instructed many forms of dance at UWO and was the assistant coordinator for this program, bringing a large amount of credibility to dance at UWO. She has enjoyed working with Original Kids, a local children's theatre company, on several shows, some of which were nominated for awards. Shawna was sought after in London to choreograph the opera of Ariadne’s Thread for The London Waldorf School. For those shows she was able to use her extensive experience from her earlier years as a triple threat performer in musical theatre. Shawna helped bring breakdancing back to UWO and also started a breakdancing program at The Athletic Club where she also taught hip hop as well. Shawna also really enjoyed performing as a member of Thrive Entertainment last year in Toronto. For over seven years, she has successfully built and ran hip hop programs at other dance studios as well as fitness facilities around the city.

Shawna is also actively invovled in the community. Currently, she is the Creative Director and Head Choreographer for INFUSION Canada, a federally registered charity, and has been volunteering her time to help raise funds for young cancer survivors over the past four years through various special fundraising events. www.infusioncanada.org

DOUG BELFORD (aka Bboy Logic)

Doug is an active participant and teacher in the Ontario breakdancing (Bboying) community. He has taught through the YMCA in London, as well as the University of Ottawa and UWO. Recently, he has also been a co-organizer of the annual Rock the Spot bboying and hip hop event series. Doug is committed to providing students with a real learning experience; showing them all the features of the dance, rather then just the aspects portrayed by the media. He also has a great interest in proper strength, diet, and stretching techniques, which he teaches to ensure students not only increase their progress and fun with the dance, but also to develop great health habits for life.

LAUREN ENGLISH

Lauren started dancing at a young age in a variety of different styles from ballet to hip-hop through recreation programs. It wasn't till starting into high school that Lauren realized she had such a passion and love for dance. She then joined a studio in her hometown of Wingham and hasn't looked back since. Lauren began specializing in Acro-Gymnastics because of her raw talent for it and her mom being a level 1 gymnast. After dancing for just over a year in a studio she began teaching because her love for dance and children meshed so well. Lauren began dancing in the competitive world and soon found out that her flexibility was more powerful than her tumbling and started working harder on it. Through her natural flexibility and working hard Lauren has been able to achieve being called a contortionist. Lauren went on to win 1st, platinum's and overalls in senior divisions at dance competitions. She was also a semi finalist at the Youth talent Search in 2007 at the Western Fair.

Lauren loves to choreograph and has been doing choreographing for festivals, recitals and competitions where her dancers have won high awards and her choreographing has scored high marks. She is currently in her last year for the Fashion Merchandising program at Fanshawe College. Lauren is happy to be apart of the Elan Dance Arts faculty and has big dreams to achieve great things at our studio.

MEGAN COLL

Megan has been dancing for over 13 years and has training in jazz, tap, ballet, acrobatics and musical theatre. With numerous years of competition experience and further dance education in the arts program at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School, Megan was the President of her Dance Council and was encouraged to audition for LMCProductions and Gary Musick Production Company. From November 2007- June 2008, Megan worked for Norwegian Cruise Lines as a dancer for Gary Musick Production Company; she performed on a ship which traveled the Caribbean. She is now a first year student at Western and is excited to join the team here at Elan Dance Arts.

MICHELLE MOSES

ROSEMARIE KAES

RACHEL ROBERTSON

MICHELLE BUTLER

JIM HAN