Dance Teacher Bios

Holly Suarez

Holly has been dancing since the age of four and has many years of dance experience in ballet, jazz, pointe, tap, modern, and hip-hop. She started out her dance path at The Somerset School of Dance and later joined Keya’s Fun Approach Dance School. There she had the opportunity to travel to Philadelphia for various workshops and was trained by professional Broadway teachers in ballet, pointe, jazz, and tap. This broadened her imagination, and since then she knew she wanted to be involved with dance for the rest of her life. In 2000, she attended In Motion School of Dance and she continued with ballet, jazz, and modern in intermediate and advanced levels until her departure for university. She was also involved in a work study program at In Motion in which she was a teacher assistant for a pre-ballet class.

She is now a graduate of Acadia University with a BBA and a minor in Spanish. She not only danced, but also taught in Canada with the Acadia Dance Collective and provided private dance lessons to young children. Holly performed with the Acadia Dance Collective for the past four years, and taught for 3 years. She played an active role, having been elected as the Vice President of Finance for the collective. Holly has experienced all aspects of what it takes to teach, perform and conduct a performance; she has been involved with absolutely every aspect of the process. Dance and teaching is her passion and she absolutely adores working with young children.

Arnario Shillingford

Arnario was first introduced to dance at the age of 9 but always had a gift for movement at a very young age. He started at Keya’s Fun Approach Dance School focusing on Jazz and Tap, but unfortunately only after two years of dancing with Keya, the school closed as the principle choreographer left to return to Philadelphia. In 1996, it was recommended that Arnario continue to enhance his skills and attended the Alvin Alley showcase at the City Hall where after an impromptu audition, received a full scholarship at the Jackson’s School of dance. That same year he also enrolled at the United Dance Production dance school taking hip hop and tap. He’s won several awards and performed in multiple shows and recitals. In 1999, Arnario decided to take a break from dance to focus on his academics but returned in 2001 and attended the In Motion School of dance and continued Tap at an advanced level.

In 2006, Arnario graduated from McMaster University with an Honors degree in Commerce. During his time at MAC, he was on several dance teams, McMaster Centre for Dance Urban Dance Company, Virgo, and NVUS. His dance teams won several hip hop competitions in Ontario and also in Ohio and Buffalo. He also taught Beginner and immediate tap and choreographed for his dance teams. He looks forward to maintaining his skill while he resides in Bermuda by teaching and taking classes whenever he can.

Kijean Dill

Kijean first fell in love with hip hop dancing 3 years ago during his senior year of university while studying in Canada, where he was asked to perform in a friends hip hop dance competition. Thinking nothing of it, Kijean joined the group and competed. Although the group never placed in the competition, it was enough to open his eyes up to the dance world and since then he has never stopped dancing.  Kijean is constantly striving to challenge the level of hip hop in Bermuda and to bring it to a higher level. In the past three years, Kijean has danced with, and taken instruction from first rate choreographers, such as Mike Song, from the group “Kaba Modern “(America’s Best Dance Crew) Kennis Marques (Diddy, Ciara, Britney Spears)  and Tabatha and Napoleon or “NappyTabs”  the hip hop choreographers for the hit television show “So You Think You Can Dance” Kijean is honoured to be a part of Dancesations and is looking forward to learning and growing with the school.

When Kijean is not dancing he is working at Elbow Beach, Hotel, as the Guest Recreations Manager.

Dominique Anderson

Dominique Anderson is from Bermuda where she trained and performed with the In Motion School of Dance and Company until coming to the U.S. for college. She received a B.A. degree in Dance and an Associate of Science in Business Administration at Dean College in Franklin, MA. She has received many scholarships and awards from The Bermuda Ballet Association, National Dance Foundation, DanceBermuda, Ross Blackie Talbot Foundation, The Peter Leitner Arts Scholarship, The Bank of Bermuda Foundation and Dean College.

Dominique has worked directly with choreographers such as hip-hop phenomenon's Kelly Peters, the dynamic duo Nu-Styles, Tweety and Rapsody James as well as modern dance legends SLAM, David Parsons and Duane Cyrus. Dominique moved to North Carolina in January 2010 where she began dancing with Martha Connerton Kinetic Works and joined Caroline Calouche and Co. in the Summer 2010. Dominique has been teaching the jazz and hiphop genres at the Charlotte School of Ballet, the Belmont School of Ballet and for Duane Cyrus Art Production in Greensboro, North Carolina for the last year. She previously taught for DanceSations and is happy to be be back this summer!

Takai Tota

Takai has been dancing for 10 years and is trained in Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Tap, Irish Tap, and Hip Hop. He was a proud member of the United Dance Productions under the artistic direction of Suzette Harvey. With UDP, he has had the opportunity to dance at numerous local events. Takai has also had the privilege to dance and perform with Bermuda Dance Company, Washington D.C. at Duke Ellington School of the Performing Arts, and Philadelphia as part of the University of the Arts “Summer Dance Festival”. Currently, he spends a lot of time choreographing for numerous different events. This is his second year teaching with DanceSations and he enjoys being the Rehearsal Director!

Jevon Easton-Vanderpool

Jevon as elusive as he can be, is no stranger to the stage. Coming from a performing family he began singing at the age of 2 and dancing by the age of 5. He studied dance and performed with United Dance Productions, Bermuda School of Russian Ballet, Bermuda Civic Ballet, In Motion School of Dance, and Jacksons School of the Performing Arts where he still teaches. Jevon has worked with numerous organizations on productions. This is his second year with DanceSations and he enjoys teaching the faculty performing class.