Congratualtions Weehawken Dancers!
Valerie Shingledecker is from western Pennsylvania. She has taught all levels and styles of hip hop, as well as jazz-pom classes since 2012. Miss Val’s dance background is primarily dance team, performing hip hop, pom, kick-line, & jazz. She danced on her high school and university dance teams, and coached dance team as an adult. She is a certified National Dance Alliance Coach. Teaching authentic, foundational hip hop and history is her passion.
Miss Val is also an activist member of the Youth Protection Advocacy in Dance, a group dedicated to ending the exploitation of youth in dance by promoting healthy, age-appropriate movement, clothing, and music. She also teaches teenagers about healthy vs unhealthy relationships as part of the One Love Foundation. Miss Val holds a Master’s Degree in Speech-Language Pathology and works with the elderly on speech, language, and swallowing when she’s not on the dance floor.
Ashley Cordell is a loving mom of 9 amazing children—8 girls and 1 boy. It’s no wonder that in addition to her love of dance, she loves training children of all ages. Ashley started her dance education in preschool and continued until college. Though she favored ballet, she also enjoyed performing and competing in jazz, tap, lyrical, and modern dance for various schools and studios in the Salt Lake area. While in college, Ashley pursued her next love: teaching children. Ashley met her husband while teaching at a private school in Salt Lake City and became an instant mother of 3. As her family grew, she worked in and out of private schools and eventually decided to share her love of learning with her children at home for 15 years.
Many of her children have enjoyed dancing with Weehawken over the past 7 years and have gained so much from their dance family and performing. Ashley and her family have loved living on the Western Slope since their move from Salt Lake City in 2015. She has enjoyed working for Weehawken over the years and is excited for another year of tiny dancers. It’s been Ashley’s passion and joy to combine her love of teaching with her love of dance.
Pang Cooper (LISTD, ARAD) comes to Weehawken from Chiang Mai, Thailand, where she owned and operated her own ballet school for 10 years. Pang began dance training at age 10 and she later became the first dancer from Chiang Mai to pass the Royal Academy of Dance’s Advanced Ballet Examination. After several years as a principal dancer with The Chiang Mai Performing Group, Pang pursued her dance teacher training in England. She currently holds a Licentiate in Imperial Classical Ballet from The UK-based Imperial Society for Teachers of Dancing, as well jazz dance teaching qualification from the Australasia Dance Association. In addition, Pang earned her B.A. in Communications from Payap University.
All told, Pang has more than 30 years experience teaching dance on three continents. Her love of dance is matched only by her love of children, and she is proud to be a part of the Weehawken team.
Lucas Vogt is a junior in high school. He has been a dedicated hip hop dancer for 8 years. He has assisted multiple instructors in hip hop levels 1-6 and has trained to be a hip hop instructor himself under Miss Val Kepler for the past 2 years. He has also trained at the Joffrey Hip Hop Intensive in NYC. He enjoys popping, street jazz, freestyle, and even partners our advanced ballet dancers here at Weehawken.
Tajiana Rueschhoff’s dance journey began at the age of 5 when she first stepped into a small ballet school in Mississippi, sparking a passion that would endure a lifetime. Growing up in Ouray, Colorado, she continued to nurture her love for dance with Weehawken, honing her skills over the years. Travel played a pivotal role in her development, allowing her to train under diverse instructors and immerse herself in various dance styles. Summers were often spent in intensive training at the Kansas City Ballet, further shaping her dedication to dance. Tajiana pursued her passion with pre-professional training at the Northwest Florida Ballet. Now, back in Ouray, she is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Geology at the University of Florida while eagerly embracing the opportunity to share her profound love for dance through teaching.
It’s a full-circle moment as Tajiana returns to her roots, teaching for Weehawken Dance at the Wright Opera House in Ouray, where she spent many years dancing with Miss Natasha. We’re thrilled to welcome her back to inspire a new generation of dancers in the same place that holds so many fond memories for her.
Rachel Maier was born and raised in central California. She spent her childhood adolescence on the dance floor at Deenies Dance Workshop, dedicating her after school learning to the art of ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical ballet, modern dance, and a few years on pointe. Her dance opportunities included travels around California performing with other dance troupes at places like Disneyland, Magic Mountain, and various local stages. She spent her senior year in high school training under award winning choreographer Susan Palace and Tiffani Powell at Sierra Performing Arts Center, focusing on ballet, jazz, and modern dance.
Upon college Rachel attended Cal State Channel Islands, with every intention to pursuer her love for dance and graduate with a degree in Performing Arts. However, Rachel ended her schooling with a Bachelor’s degree in Business. It was shortly before graduation that Rachel met her now husband and was gratefully introduced to the beauty of a Colorado. Before moving to Colorado, Rachel pursued another dream of becoming a Makeup Artist (a passion that came about through her years of applying stage makeup and doing part time modeling during college) and attended Makeup Designory of Burbank, CA where she received her certification in makeup artistry.
Since moving to Colorado officially in 2013, Rachel is now a mother of two wonderful children. She had been working freelance as a makeup artist and hair stylist with a focus on bridal work, specializing in retro/pinup looks, and occasionally having opportunities to do SPFX/character makeups. Rachel always knew she would find her way back into the dance studio, a place that always held a special place in her heart. She is thrilled to be working with creative minds in the field of dance once more and looks forward to sharing her love for the arts with Weehawken and the community of Montrose.
Marisa grew up in Austin, TX dancing as a member of a youth competitive dance team, Austin’s Dance Elite. Here she began her love for dance and trained and competed in ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, lyrical and contemporary. Marisa began teaching youth classes at the age of 13 for Alisa’s Dance Academy and Champions Gymnastics while continuing to train dance. She’s had the opportunity to train at Edge Performing Arts Center, New York City Dance Alliance, Millenium Dance Complex and many more.
After high school, she dove into the world of yoga, using it as a tool to correct injury from years in the competition dance circuit. In 2014 she received her 200hr yoga teacher training from S-Vyasa. During this time she began performing fire dance, on pointe and character acts for a number of festivals through Insomniac Events and Fire and Ice Entertainment.
Marisa fell in love with aerial after seeing a live performance and began training silks. She received her aerial yoga teacher training certificate from Levity Academy in 2017. Wanting to dive deeper into the circus world, Marisa joined Flyco, a preprofessional aerial training program in 2018. Here she had the opportunity to train Chinese pole, trapeze, partner acrobatics, lyra, silks, rope and contortion. After Flyco, Marisa became a member of A-wol, a contemporary dance aerial company and a coach with The Circus Project.
Marisa continues to train contemporary, silks, lyra and contortion regularly. She also enjoys spending time outside, taking her dog on hikes and going climbing and skiing with her partner.
Leeann Rackleff began dancing at the age of 6 and loved ballet from the very beginning. She danced through her teen years and into college taking classical ballet, contemporary, and lyrical. She thoroughly enjoyed performing, dancing on pointe, and taking master classes from the Joffrey Ballet. Leeann graduated from Southern Virginia University in 2006 with degrees in nursing and early childhood education.
Dance was put on hold for a while after college while Leeann’s family grew. She married Paul Rackleff and became the mother of three beautiful children.
Since then, Leeann has been back to her first love, ballet! She began assisting Miss Natasha with her classes in 2014, and began teaching her own classes in the fall of 2015. Preferring to teach the littlest Weehawken dancers, Leeann teaches pre and primary ballet and Hip Hop at Weehawken Dance in Montrose. In 2019 Miss Leeann became Rhythm Works Integrative Dance certified, and enjoys turning dance into a therapy modality in classes for children with specials needs and individual learning differences.
Delana Willsie-Poteet was born and raised in Colorado. Her parents surrounded her in a world of music. She started dancing at 6 months old to her Dad playing guitar. By age 8 she was gathering a group of peers together to teach her own choreography at recess.
After graduating high school she was accepted into the Sound of America to train, travel Europe, and sing for audiences in several beautiful cities.
In 2015, she found a love for making people happy and more confident, so she became a licensed Zumba instructor teaching at Gold’s gym. This opened up doors doing aqua salsa at the rec center, and teaching beginner to intermediate Hip Hop at Weehawken. 2017 started a whole new chapter of Hip Hop training under Val Kepler. Delana has been teaching at Weehawken since.
Natasha Pyeatte has been dancing non-stop since the age of four, never having imagined doing anything else. She always knew that she would grow up to be someone who dances and inspires others to dance.
Natasha has extensive professional performance and choreography experience having trained and danced with the Colorado Ballet Academy in Denver; Gotta Dance and The Edge in Los Angeles; Grand Valley Dance Company; and Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. She has performed with Valerie Madonia, Tony Coppola, Feet First Dance Ensemble, Telluride Repertory Theatre, Telluride Aids Benefit, and the Morgan Wixson Theatre of Santa Monica. She has choreographed for Magic Circle Theatre of Montrose, Weehawken Dance, Ouray County Players, Telluride Dance Academy, and The Ames Conservatory.
As a committed educator, Natasha has been teaching dance and choreographing since 2001. Her specialties include tap, jazz, ballet, pointe, theatre dance and aerial silks. She has acquired dance instructor training under the direction of Valerie Madonia, current Director of the Colorado Ballet Academy; at Colorado Mesa University; Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance in Boulder, Co, Air Cat Aerials Yoga Certification training in Boulder, Co; and The American Ballet Theatre in New York. In 2012 Natasha completed her National Training Curriculum certification in all levels of the program. Natasha is an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through Level 7 of the ABT® National Training Curriculum.
In addition to her ABT certification, Natasha is a certified Pilates instructor, having finished her final comprehensive exam through Balanced Body with Annette Petit in Telluride in 2019 and her National Pilates Certification through the Pilates Method Alliance in 2021. Pilates has been proven to be an ideal form of cross training for dancers to keep them strong, balanced and injury free. By integrating Pilates exercises into the classroom, Natasha keeps her dancers safe so they can have a long career and healthy body.
Natasha is passionate about the arts and has enjoyed developing the Weehawken Dance program as the Artistic Director since the fall of 2007. Utilizing her endless energy and enthusiasm, she creates at least 2 Weehawken Dance performances a year. The communities of Silverton, Ouray, Ridgway and Montrose benefit from her talent in the 20 to 30 classes a week she teaches. Her insight and vision inspire her students, fellow teachers and volunteers in addition to delighting anyone who sees her in action.