Meet Our Instructors
Summer 2010
Andrea Kostas began dancing at the age of three. She has studied with Jo Noth, at White Oak Dance Academy, Blue Springs, Missouri. Andrea started competing on a National level at the age of 7. She has received numerous scholarships to study in New York City, NY at the Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway. She has received many awards nationally including placing in competitions, high score awards, and technical awards. Andrea has been a Mule Kicker at the University of Central Missouri and currently attends Missouri State University as a dance major. Her focus of study is Tap, Ballet, Jazz, and Modern. She is currently teaching dance at Tiffany's Performing Arts Studio in Republic, Missouri while attending college. She has taught dance at By Grace Performance Studio for 5 years and is coming back for the 2010 Summer session.
Ashli Solomon started dancing at a young age. Ashli has trained and competed in ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, and gymnastics for several years. After graduating from Warrensburg High is 2009, she traveled to Seattle, Washington to train and perform with the Tacoma City of Ballet (TCB) for 6 months. She has been teaching dance and choreography since the age of 14. Ashli has traveled to New York , Seattle , San Antonio, among other cities, to take convention classes and showcase her choreography. She has been substitute teaching at By Grace for 2 years and is officially joining the staff in June of 2010.
Kelsi Woirhaye & Alyssa Simmons will be teaching cheer this summer. They are both senior members of the CHS Cheerleading Squad.
Casey Cummings will be teaching poms this summer. She is a senior member of the CHS Poms Squad.
Stasha Baker has been actively taking dance classes for the past 25 years (since the age of 2). She started at Jo Noth's White Oak Dance Academy and continued there until graduating high school in 2001. Miss Stasha attended college at Mizzou and graduated with a BA in Anthropology with an emphasis in Forensics in December, 2005. While at Mizzou, Miss Stasha was granted a full scholarship to Dancearts of Columbia co-owned by Marie Robertson and Maggie Dethrow. There she studied Jazz, Hip Hop, Ballet, Pointe and Modern. She began teaching at Dancearts in 2004 and taught a Beginner/Intermediate Adult Ballet class (oldest student was in her mid 60's with the youngest in the class being a recent high school graduate) and by 2005, Miss Stasha was teaching all ages. Also in 2005, she began teaching at Jefferson City Dance Academy owned by Jan Dunning. At Jefferson City Dance Academy, she taught Jazz, Lyrical and Hip Hop for 2 years. In November of 2007, Miss Stasha moved back to Kansas City, Missouri to work for the Kansas City Missouri Police Department and returned to White Oak Dance Academy where she has been taking classes since the move. For the Ballet Intensive, focus will be on building core strength as well as technique. Miss Stasha believes that all dance is founded in good solid ballet technique.
