Summer Dance Intensive

Faculty

Summer Dance Intensive Faculty 2022

Kate Kernaghan
Directrice, en studio

A graduate of Canada’s National Ballet School’s Teacher Training Program, Kate Kernaghan received her Royal Academy of Dance Teacher’s Certificate, as well as her Associate from the Imperial Society of Teacher’s of Dancing. She is also a Fletcher Pilates Licensed provider, a CanFit Pro Personal Trainer, and most recently completed her 200 hour Teacher Training with Power Yoga Canada. Having had former students go onto Canada's National Ballet School, The Ailey School, the School of Alberta Ballet and Canada's Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, Kate’s dedication to teaching and to her students never goes unnoticed. Kate brings a wealth of teaching experience to the dance and fitness community and leads each class with positivity, dynamic energy and care for her students.

Shavar Blackwood

Shavar "Caution" Blackwood has had the opportunity to work with choreographers and performers such as Allen Kaeja, Luther Brown, Sean Cheeseman, Siona Jackson, Mandy Moore and Bill T. Jones.

His passion for dance lets him take his ideas of the Hip Hop culture to the next level by fusing it with different forms of dance such as Contemporary, House, Vogue, Popping and Krump. These principles led Shavar to achieve a Top 14 spot on Season 3 of So You Think You Can Dance Canada and to perform in the Lifetime movie Aaliyah The Princess of R&B, Family Channel’s Naturally Sadie and with artists such as Cascada, Mcfly, George Nozuka, Divine Brown and Jacksoul.

Shavar has taught for many institutions such as Canada’s National Ballet School, City Dance Corps, OIP Dance Centre, among others. He has choreographed for events with SickKids Canada, Toronto’s Choreographers’ Ball, Bazaar, Fever, TDSB Martin Luther King Remembrance Day celebration at Roy Thompson Hall and was the winner of Manifesto Dance Competition.

Megan Nadain

Megan Nadain, a native of North Vancouver, British Columbia, is a Toronto-based dancer, choreographer and dance educator. She is a graduate of The School of Toronto Dance Theatre, for which she received scholarships from the school, the Hnatyshyn Foundation and the BC Arts Council. Megan is a company member with Dancetheatre David Earle and has worked independently with Darryl Tracy, inDANCE, Toronto Heritage Dance and Event Horizon Dance. In the summer of 2014, she performed with Dancetheatre David Earle in Dusseldorf, Germany at the tanzmesse dance festival. Megan is a faculty member at the School of Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre and she directs the Core Apprentices for the CCDT Company. She also teaches and rehearsal directs at The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and teaches in several high schools in Toronto.

Alejandra Valiente

Alejandra Valiente is a professional performer, instructor, adjudicator and choreographer who specializes in Ballet, Floor Barre and Competitive Ballet Choreography. With 35 years of extensive experience performing and teaching, Alejandra graduated from The National Ballet School in Mexico City and went on to receive her teaching certificates from The Royal Academy of Dance, Vaganova, Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) Associated, Progressing Ballet Technique (PBT) and Cecchetti. She has worked as a performer in classical and neo-classical ballet, folklore European and musical theatre and as a choreographer for TV shows as Sesame Street. She worked as Creative Director for Conexion en Movimiento in Mexico and worked on events such as the Para Pan Games Guadalajara 2011 and the presentation of the mascot at the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto. Alejandra is committed to sharing her knowledge to help all generations of dancers to understand the value of ballet technique through their dance journey.

Josh Nitkin

Josh Nitkin is a graduate of the Randolph Academy for the Performing Arts and holds certification with PAA (Professional Adjudicators Alliance), BATD (British Association of Teachers of Dancing) and PAEC (Performing Arts Educators of Canada) in Tap, Jazz and Urban with which he helped develop the syllabus. Josh has 30 years of training and performance in Tap, Jazz, Acrobatics, Modern, Hip Hop, Lyrical, Musical Theatre and more. With almost 20 years of teaching, Josh's students have gone on to win numerous overall awards and have garnered choreography awards as well. Josh is a sought-after Adjudicator across Canada and the United States. Having adjudicated for Dance Masters of America (North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Houston, Great Lakes), American Dance Awards, Terpsichore Dance Celebration/Dance Starz, AmeriCup, Dance Xtreme Nationals, Millennium Productions Nationals, Peak Invitational and many others. Josh is also a former dancer with Celebrity Cruise Lines and Corpus Dance Projects, having performed in Alaska, France, the UK, Belgium, Japan and all over Central and South America.

Sasha Ludavicius

Sasha Ludavicius is a professional contemporary dance artist in Toronto. She was the recipient of the ProArteDanza’s Summer Dance Intensive Program Apprenticeship Award in 2015 and has been a company member since then. In 2016, she graduated from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Ludavicius was selected to be a part of the 2017/18 RBC Emerging Artists Project with Peggy Baker Dance Projects. In furthering her education as an artist, she became a freelance contemporary dance teacher, personal fitness trainer as well as a certified yoga instructor in Toronto. Since 2018, she has been the training coordinator along with being the rehearsal director for ProArteDanza’s Summer Dance Intensive Program. Additionally, she was the rehearsal director for The Canadian Contemporary Dance Theatre during their 2022 Season. Ludavicius has previously been on faculty during the National Ballet of Canada's In-Studio Summer Dance Intensive and is thrilled to be returning to teach contemporary dance again this year.

Kahlil Calder

Originally from Waterloo, Ontario, Kahlil Calder finished his dance studies at Canada's National Ballet School under the tutelage of Glenn Gilmour and Sergiu Stefanschi. Upon graduating, Kahlil went on to dance with The National Ballet of Canada, The Alberta Ballet and with the international Dance Theatre in the Netherlands. In 2010 Kahlil was accepted as Associate Professor in the dance department for the University of Stavanger in Norway where he taught, performed and produced works. Kahlil is a sought after guest teacher and coach both nationally and internationally.

Jenna Shortt

Jenna Shortt has been dancing since the young age of 4. With 14 years of competitive dance training in various styles ranging in Tap, Ballet, Jazz, Hip Hop, Contemporary, Musical Theatre, Lyrical and more; her passion for dance spread into an all around love of the arts and soon after began acting and singing. She graduated from her performing arts high school with honours and took a leap of faith to pursue her dreams as a professional dancer. After moving to Toronto, Jenna has been a part of Hot in Heels Canada for four seasons and has toured North America with The Pulse Dance Experience. Jenna was chosen to be a member of the Raptor’s Northside Crew for the 22 – 23 season.

Larkin Miller

Learn more about Larkin

Johanna Bergfeldt

Johanna Bergfeldt was born in Sweden and trained at the Royal Swedish Ballet School. She has an extensive performance background beginning with Östgötabaletten in Sweden where she worked for six years. She later joined Norrdans, and Barents Dance Ensemble. She came to Canada in 2000 and was a dancer with Toronto Dance Theatre for six years. She has worked with numerous choreographers and companies including Kate Alton, Louis Laberge-Côté and ProArteDanza to name a few. Ms. Bergfeldt has been nominated three times for a Dora Mavor Moore Award. She teaches regularly at Canada’s National Ballet School, Dance-teq, GMD, The School of Toronto Dance Theatre and Toronto Dance Theatre, as well as teaching Pilates at Riverdale Pilates.

Tene Ward

Learn more about Tene