Faculty

Kathy Martin-Palmo, Studio Director and Instructor

Contact by email at director@institutefordance.org

Ms. Kathy is a native of Long Island, New York. Through the years Ms. Kathy has trained in tap and jazz with The June Claire Dance Center with Lynda Gache', Broadway Dance Center with Frank Hatchett and Steps. She has eighteen years of teaching experience at The June Claire Dance Center in Long Island specializing in tap, jazz, and children's work. From 1991-1993, Ms. Kathy taught dance at the Port Jefferson Elementary School Dance Program. Ms. Kathy has had students go on to both teaching and professional dance careers such as “The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular,” “Tap Dogs” and “The Spirit of Dance.”

Kristine Antis, Instructor and Director, The Williamsburg Ballet Theatre

Ms. Kristine has an extensive background as a professional dancer, teacher, and choreographer. Professionally, she has been a Principal with Columbia Classical Ballet as well as The National Ballet of Crofton, performing leads in Carmen, Giselle, Madame Butterfly, Grand Pas from The Nutcracker, and Snow Pas. She was a soloist with the Richmond Ballet as well as Eugene Ballet, performing in Swan Lake, Coppelia, Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker, Chopiniana, and many repertoire ballets. She has both taught and choreographed for Spoleto. Ms. Antis received most of her schooling in California with The Berkeley Ballet, Solano Civic Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, and then Richmond Ballet summer program. While dancing in South Carolina, she became certified in Mat Pilates, and has been teaching it ever since. While living in Maryland, she taught for three years at The Washington School of Ballet, at Olney, Crofton, and also at The Body College, where she received training on apparatus for Pilates, and was later certified in New York. Ms. Antis lives with her husband, six cats and one dog in Prince George, Virginia.

Elizabeth Pierce, Instructor

Ms. Elizabeth is a graduate of The College of William and Mary, with majors in Business and English. She has been dancing for 17 years and has been on an award-winning competitive dance team for 10 of those years.

Lisa Hunt, Instructor, Irish Dance

Lisa has been studying Irish dance since 1997 with An Cor Rud (The Reel Thing School of Irish Dance) of Virginia Beach. She has been an assistant teacher with the school since 2003 teaching privates, assisting with the Championship classes and practicing the school's competitive dancers in Williamsburg and Richmond. She also runs her own studio in Williamsburg for non-competitive, performance driven Irish dancing. Lisa retired from solo competition at the Open Championship Level after having participated in the 2004 and 2005 North American Championships as well as the World Championships in Belfast and Ennis. She has performed onstage with such acts as the Eileen Ivers Band and the Chieftains. She is an experienced Ceili caller and strongly supports Irish figure dancing in both its social and competitive forms. This year she called RSA's first fundraiser Ceili which was a great success! Lisa holds a B.A. degree in English and minor degree in Art from the University of Virginia. She has also been restoring and reweaving oriental rugs at home for the past 18 years. These days Lisa has been enjoying motherhood with her new son Fynn.

Susan Talebi, Instructor

Susan started classical ballet training at five years old. She studied at Jane Bittner's Dance Studio in Olney, Maryland where she participated in an intensive program where she studied technique, pointe, modern, jazz & character. She was cast as the lead in Cinderella, and performed as soloist in Hansel and Gretel. For the Nutcracker she performed as the Snow Queen, Spanish and Lead Flower in Waltz of the Flowers, soloist in Les Sylphides, and also performed traditional Chinese folk dancing with the East West Ballet Company. She was accepted in the dance department at Mercyhurst College and while there joined The Lake Erie Ballet Theater. Most recently she graduated from The College of William and Mary where she continued her dance education. We welcome her to the iDance family.

Lindsey Kravitz, Instructor

Lindsey started dancing in 1993 with the Institute for Dance. At the age of eleven, she began student teaching under Miss Sharon. Six years later, Lindsey has moved up to one of the faculty members at The Institute for Dance. She is currently teaching 5 classes: Junior Hip Hop, Tap 1A, Ballet 1, Tap 1 and Jazz 1. Lindsey is a Freshman at The College of William and Mary, where she plans on studying Elementary Education.

Kimberly Yuhasz, Instructor

With a diverse background, Kimberly currently instructs in the disciplines of Ballet, Jazz, Tap, and Hip Hop.