Bobbie Jaramillo, Co-Director
Bobbie began her training in Louisville, Kentucky where she joined the Louisville Civic Ballet at the age of nine and worked her way from corps de ballet to prima ballerina, appearing in such ballets as Giselle, Les Sylphides, Pas de Quatre, Carmina Burana, and The Nutcracker. She has danced and worked with such legends as Mia Slavenska, Andre Eglevsky, Lupe Serrano, Royes Fernandez, Toni Lander, and Fernand Nault and has been mentioned in the book “Who’s Who in the Ballet World”. Bobbie began teaching dance at the age of fifteen and at age eighteen operated her own dance school. She also studied voice and piano at the prestigious Gardencourt at the University of Louisville. Bobbie’s versatility allowed her to work in the theater where she appeared as Anita in West Side Story, Philia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Rashomon (with Actors Theatre of Louisville), and A Most Happy Fella, many to rave reviews as well as appearing in several summer productions. Bobbie moved to New York City and within ten days landed a job in the National tour of Hello, Dolly! with Betty Grable in which she performed as a dancer and was also given the understudy to the role of Ermengarde which she performed twenty-eight times. When this tour had ended, she joined another, this one starring Ginger Rogers and Dorothy Lamour. This time Bobbie was given understudy to the major role of Irene Molloy. During an appearance in this role, the world renowned pianist Van Cliburn was so taken by her performance that he asked to meet her. Bobbie went to work for a well-known children’s theatre company owned by CBS performing many ingénue roles. She also appeared as Polly in The Boyfriend and Lady Larkin in Once Upon a Mattress. In the New York area she worked in Gypsy with Margaret Whiting and Promises, Promises with Orson Bean. She was also cast in a starring role in an off-Broadway production. Bobbie was called upon once again to do Hello, Dolly!, this time on Broadway with Ethel Merman. After the show succeeded in becoming the longest running show on Broadway, she and her husband David decided to start a family. After having three children (one single birth and twins) in twenty-one months, they moved back to David’s hometown of Denver. Bobbie went back to teaching. She also began to ice skate and since 1976 she has been a ballet coach for figure skaters both on and off the ice. She was the assistant choreographer for the closing ceremonies for Skate America in Reading, PA. in 2003. In addition to beginning the children’s program, teaching and choreographing for the David Taylor Dance Theatre Academy of Ballet for eighteen years, Bobbie has choreographed musicals at Heritage High School over the last ten years, teaches tap in Heritage’s dance class, and has taught at Front Range Community College. She and her daughter Alison opened LDA in the fall of 2003. Bobbie currently has students dancing all over the country. Many are on scholarship at prestigious dance programs in universities, another studied on full scholarship at the School of American Ballet in NYC, one is currently enjoying great success in Hollywood, and still others have also gone on to dance professionally, both in ballet and musical theatre. She also has wonderful former students who have decided not to pursue careers in dance now enjoying other options. She treasures all of her students, former and present and celebrates all of their many successes.

Alison Jaramillo, Co-Director
Alison was raised in Colorado and first received her training with her mother Bobbie, and then with teachers Lynelle Mossholder, James Clouser, and Debbie Mercer, and later on scholarship at the Pennsylvania Ballet School, well as summers at the Boston Ballet School on scholarship, Joffrey Ballet School, Pacific Northwest Ballet School, and the Houston Ballet Academy. In 1988, Alison won the 1st place Florence Ruston Award and a $1,200 scholarship at the Denver Ballet Guild Scholarship Competition. She first joined the David Taylor Dance Theatre professional company at the age of sixteen and returned in the fall of 1998 where she was featured as Clara in The Nutcracker, and performed principal roles in many works over five years, including her favorite, James Wallace’s The Storm. Previously, Alison danced with the Dayton Ballet for six years performing in over sixty ballets, including works by such legendary choreographers as Arpino, Balanchine, Joffrey, and Tudor, and then joined Oregon Ballet Theatre in Portland, Oregon, and was most recently a principal with Boulder Ballet. Career highlights include being personally chosen to perform Balanchine’s Tarantella by former NYCB ballerina Patricia McBride, as well as performing principal roles in works by Washington Ballet’s artistic director Septime Webre, and former Joffrey Ballet dancer Christian Holder. She also performed a principal role at the 2003 Skate America closing ceremonies. She has taught dance for over nineteen years including serving as the interim director of the Dayton Ballet School Ensemble and co-directing Movin’ On, a dance group for mentally challenged teens and adults. In 2003, she won Best Choreography for her work at the Dance Educators of America conference. Currently she is a regular guest teacher at Denver School of the Arts, teaches ballet for Heritage High School’s Theatre Topics class and teaches at Centennial Academy for Fine Arts Education in Littleton.

Lorita Travaglia, Pre-Professional Teacher
Lorita is originally from New Zealand. She was trained in both the Royal Academy of Dancing syllabus and the Russian Vaganova system. In her 20-year professional stage career, she danced with the Berlin Ballet, Boston Ballet, Atlanta Ballet and International Ballet Rotaru and has been a guest dancer with many companies. She has danced principal roles in a wide repertoire ranging from classical to contemporary. Lorita has been teaching since 1986. She established a pre-professional, full-time training program in New Zealand and directed Canyon Concert Ballet in Fort Collins for three years. In September 1999, she joined Colorado Ballet as repetiteur and director of the Apprentice Program; in 2006 she was promoted to Ballet Mistress under the direction of Artistic Director Gil Boggs. Her choreography includes The Nutcracker for Canyon Concert Ballet and Aspects, Equilibrium, and Pictures at an Exhibition for Colorado Ballet II. Lorita graduated from the Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine and practices acupuncture in Denver. Lorita had a beautiful young daughter named Li Li. She teaches the Ballet VI students at the LDA

Debra Mercer, Ballet
Debra has been teaching and performing in Colorado for thirty years. She has a B.A. with honors in Dance from York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She has been a principal dancer with the Jackson Ballet, Colorado Ballet, David Taylor Dance Theatre, and other local companies around the state. She is currently teaching ballet at Colorado College and is a member and Ballet Mistress of the Ormao Contemporary Dance Company, both in Colorado Springs. She is also teaching for the Boulder Ballet, Boulder Ballet School, and taught at Miller’s Dance Studio for fifteen years. She is fortunate enough to have studied with some of the best ballet teachers in the world, including Antony Tudor, Enrique Martinez, Milenko Banovic, James Clouser, Marjorie Tallchief, and George Skibine to name a few. She has studied from master teachers in the Bournonville, Vaganova, Cecchetti, and Royal Academy of Dance’s syllabus’ and travels to Taos, New Mexico every summer to study the Balanchine repertory with Jillana, a former principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. Debbie teaches the Ballet IV, Ballet V and Ballet VI students at LDA.

Larry Southall, Hip Hop
Larry holds a MFA in Performance and Choreography from the University of Colorado. A native of the Bronx, NY, he began dancing hip hop forms in the early eighties. He has worked with many companies including: Boulder Ballet, Harambee African Dance Ensemble, Blue Moon, Motion Underground, Longmont Symphony and Dance Theatre, and Steamboat Springs Dance Theatre. Larry has worked as a master teacher at Dance Place in Washington, D.C., at Slippery Rock University, and for the American College Dance Festival. He has choreographed for the native Tongue Dance Theatre, Skeleton dance Project, the Black College Dance Exchange, and the Legacies concert of the American College Dance festival in Boulder. Larry teaches traditional hip-hop and is an established and well respected teacher. He has served as adjunct faculty at the University of Colorado, for Longmont Dance Theatre, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, and for LDA.

Jennifer Gonzalez, Jazz (Coming Soon)

 Scott Elliott, Boys Dance and Adult Ballet

Scott graduated from the Boston Conservatory in ’91 with a Bachelor in Dance and Theater Performance and a minor in Music. While in Boston he danced professionally with a Latin American company until he moved to Dayton Ohio performing soloist roles with Dayton Ballet. There he danced for 4 years in major roles in ballets such as Surprise Symphony, Carmina Burana, The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Merlyn and Mozart Charades. While a soloist, he also taught ballet, modern and jazz for Dayton Ballet II and school. After having surgery on his knee for the second time, Scott retired from dance and went back to school for his Masters in Health and Sport Science from the University of Dayton. Two year later he became a Physical Education teacher in the Dayton Public School system. After bringing dance and gymnastics to his school he found interest in starting a competitive team of boys and girls for what he called Cheer-nastics. He then took these 3^rd–6^th grade athletes to qualify for National Cheerleading Competition in Orlando Florida. Then he moved back to the Berkshires where his family now resides. Working as the Senior Program Director for YMCA Camp Hi-Rock in Mt. Washington, Scott spent his years directing summer camps and year round programs. During the winter months he danced with Olga Dunn and taught at her school. Soon after being noticed in the community, he performed and worked with Whitney Grey at Berkshire school where he taught a range of jazz and lyrical movement to students over two years. The following three years he lived in central Massachusetts at Camp Frank A. Day where he was the Director of Camping Operations for the West Suburban YMCA in Newton MA. In 2007, dance was reintroduced to Scott as he returned to performing as Uncle Drosselmeyer in the Nutcracker for LDA.  Scott teaches the Boys Dance, Adult Ballet, and Jazz.

 Jeoff Horgan, Jazz

Jeoff was born in Colorado Springs with a burning ambition to make a difference in anything he would set his mind upon. He lived in Zweibrücken, Germany during the majority of his pre-teen years and then moved back to Colorado – the place he calls home. He received double Bachelors in Theatre Directing and Dance Choreography in 1996 from the University of Northern Colorado, and since then has been choreographing and dancing, with acclaim, for the David Taylor Dance Theatre and many other organizations, both nationally and in the Denver metro area. Now in his 13th season with DTDT, Jeoff is back in school working on a master’s degree in Sports Medicine. He would like to thank everyone who loves and still stands by him in life, especially his mother and father. Jeoff teaches Adult Jazz at LDA.

 Meggan Knox, Pre-Ballet

Meggan is from Waupun, WI, where she grew up dancing around her family room and taking ballet (and later tap) at a Parks and Recreation Center.  She received her BA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Spanish Language and Literature where she met her husband, Ben.  Meggan continued to dance while at UW, as well as leading a Worship Arts dance team for Campus Crusade for Christ for two years.  She and Ben attend Denver Seminary in Littleton.  Meggan is creating a course for churches that want to integrate dance into the corporate worship setting for her MA in Christian Studies.  Meggan began attending Littleton Dance Academy in the spring of 2006.  She is thrilled to be challenged by training at LDA as well as teaching Pre-Ballet on Saturday mornings.

Jonelle Camp, Pre-Ballet (Coming Soon)

 Jess Dushane, Conditioning

After having worked in a corporate IT position for 13 1/2 years, Jess Dushane grew tired of the high-stress, high-demand lifestyle she was leading & decided to open her own business as a holistic practitioner. She now owns her company called Awaken Within and is trained in a variety of holistic modalities, all designed to bring about both emotional & physical change. She specializes in PUSH Therapy, Reiki, Journey work, & also teaches yoga in both community & private settings. She is Yoga Alliance-certified & brings her skills in yoga & Pilates to the academy, where she hopes she can share her knowledge of stretching & strengthening with our younger generation of students.  Jess teaches the Conditioning class at LDA.