Miss Terri is the director of Next  Step Dance Studio.  She holds her Master Certification in dance from Chicago National Association of Dance Masters.  She has served as a Board Member, Treasurer and currently is the Principal (hires Faculty for the organization).  She earned her B.F.A. degree in dance from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  She has over 30 years of teaching experience.  Her passion is teaching children the love of dance.

Katie grew up in Wisconsin Rapids, WI, where she was a competitive cheerleader for ten years. She competed on the JV and Varsity Co-ed teams in high school. She also trained in Ballet, Jazz, Modern and Pointe at Dance With Pam for seven years. Katie has been teaching dance for over 5 years at the YMCA in La Crosse, for the city of Middleton Recreation Department, and for Dancercise Kids LLC. She was a KID from Wisconsin Singer/Dancer, and toured the state of Wisconsin for two summers. She has attended Chicago Dance Masters Training, and was a Central Wisconsin Dance Camp Staff Member for two summers. In 2013, Katie was crowned Miss Wisconsin Rapids Area, and competed in the Miss Wisconsin Pageant. She has been and continues to judge local cheerleading and dance competitions throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota. Katie graduated from the University of Wisconsin La Crosse with a B.S. in Business Management, and is now pursuing a Juris Doctor Degree at Marquette University Law School.

Miss Amanda has 27 years of dance experience.  She took 15 years of studio dance which included training in tap, jazz, ballet, and pointe.  She has been teaching dance for 14 years at both the competitive and recreational levels. She was also an award winning choreographer for a junior high and high school dance team for 5 years in southeastern Wisconsin earning nine state titles within her five years choreographing with the teams.  Amanda is a WACPC, UPA/DX, and USASF certified dance judge, and a member of the WACPC Board of Directors. She is also the current WACPC Dance Judge Coordinator responsible for training and hiring regional and state dance judges for the state of Wisconsin.  Amanda stays active in the dance world by consulting at camps and conferences as a dance speaker/instructor. She has traveled to Australia and all over Europe as a student ambassador leader that supervises junior high and high school students across the United States that have been awarded the opportunity to travel to countries across the world representing our state and nation. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a Bachelor’s Degree in Kinesiology and Business. Outside of dance, she loves traveling the world, photography, and everything Disney!

Miss Laura grew up in Madison, WI where she began taking dance at a young age. She trained at the Madison Professional Dance Center (MPDC) in ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary and modern dance for 10 years. Throughout her years there, she was also apart of their company, competing throughout Wisconsin and Illinois. In High School she joined the school’s dance team, performing at football and basketball games, and was captain her Junior and Senior years. At age 18, Miss Laura had the honor of dancing with her MPDC teachers, as well as other local dancers, in a production that was performed at the Overture Performing Arts Center. She then moved to Milwaukee, WI to attend the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, receiving a bachelors in Early Childhood Education. Miss Laura has been teaching kindergarten for Milwaukee Public Schools since 2015 and is going back to school at UWM for her masters. Miss Laura is so excited to join the Next Step Dance family and to help teach the new Twinkle Star dance program for our youngest dancers!

BIO COMING SOON 🙂

Rae began her dance training at the age of 8 and was instantly in love. Her studio dance education was complimented by programs with the Milwaukee Ballet School and Danceworks. Growing up as a student and assistant on the competition circuit, she studied lyrical, jazz, tap, hip-hop, classical and contemporary ballet/pointe and received numerous awards, recognitions, titles and scholarships which led her to Summer intensives with companies such as Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and the Rock School in Philadelphia.
As a teen, Rae was featured in modern dance performances in the Netherlands and Germany. She was also active in theater, including a run as “Kristine” in “A Chorus Line”.
At 18, Rae moved to Los Angeles to dance and perform for stage and screen. While making a living doing industrial and commercial dance work, she took every opportunity to learn from and/or perform with contemporary and jazz choreographers, including Justin Giles, Mia Michaels and Dee Caspary.
Rae has taught dance for close to fifteen years and is the Artistic Director of Friction Dance Company, collaborating with local dancers, artists, directors and musicians to bring dance to an atypical audience. She is thrilled to return to Next Step and inspired to be working with such a talented and hard-working group of young dancers.

Miss Christina is from Minneapolis where she started dancing at Minnesota Dance Theatre. She has danced in the schools of Boston Ballet, Charlotte Ballet and Madison Ballet, and was a trainee at Joffrey Chicago. She also took part in programs with the Dutch National Ballet and Académie Américaine de Danse de Paris. She was in the Milwaukee Ballet II program for 2 years, and was then hired into the main company, where she is currently dancing. Although her focus is ballet, she has trained and worked with modern, jazz, and contemporary teachers and choreographers, which has brought her a better understanding of dance and movement. Over the years she has had an amazing variety of teachers and training, and is excited to bring her knowledge to her students.

Mr. Chris grew up in Fond du Lac, WI, in a very heavily music-based family. From Concert Master of Orchestra to the Tenor Saxophone lead of jazz band, he felt as if music was what he wanted to pursue after graduating from high school in 2011. Attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in fall 2011, he decided to study Piano Performance and was blessed with a partial scholarship following his audition, but after that first year, he found that it did not feel as fulfilling as he had anticipated. Dropping his music major and switching completely to a vastly different major was one of the best decisions he had ever made. He ended up graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in May 2016 with a degree in finance, but had he not switched his major, it could have been very possible he would have never found something else that he quickly fell in love with. In fall of 2013, this being his third year in college, he decided to take the Hip Hop class at the University [just for fun] due to seeing all of the enjoyment his friends seemed to have while they performed at the University’s showcase the previous semester. Little did he know, within the first month of starting that class, he would audition and end up in an opportunistic dance company, Sole Matter, and take dance much more seriously. A year later after just starting the class, he was given the opportunity to teach dance for his very first time in which he taught for a year. Due to needing to focus on school, he left the studio, and for the following few years, he still stayed involved with many dance groups as a dancer and a choreographer, some including The Family, mainly under the direction of Samantha Wood, and VSA MKE, a group of friends in which we represent the Vietnamese Student Association of Milwaukee, performing at many showcases at UW-Milwaukee along with conferences, one of which took place in the Twin Cities in Minnesota. I am very excited to be working with the talented and hard-working students at Next Step Dance Studio and most of all, to see them grow and have fun in dance!

Miss Carly is beyond excited to be a new teacher at Next Step this year! She grew up dancing competitively at two studios in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. She was on the dance team at Lake Zurich High School, and joined the UWM Panther Dance team in college. During her final year of college, she was a Milwaukee Bucks Dancer and given the opportunity to dance with famous music artists including Blackstreet and Montell Jordan. Miss Carly is working on obtaining a Masters degree in elementary education, and plans to teach 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade next year. She is so excited to combine her two passions at Next Step: dancing and working with kids!

Rizzie started dancing at the age of 10 at Elite Dance Center in Dyer, Indiana. She always admired the joy her dance teacher put in every class, competition, and recital. I’ve always wanted to a teacher like her and inspire new dancers through optimism and the love of dancing! I love Next Step because everyone feels like a family. It is a welcoming place of passionate dancers at every age!

Rachele has been dancing since the age of 3. She trained at a competitive studio in New Jersey before getting involved with Dance Team in High School. Rachele was both Captain of her high school and college dance teams. She also has been teaching dance since 2014 and is currently the Assistant Coach of the UW-Milwaukee College Dance Team. Rachele obtained her Bachelor’s in Business at UWM and currently raises capital for a commercial real estate private equity fund.

Miss Lori enjoyed a 20-year history with the Milwaukee Ballet. She joined the company under the direction of Ted Kivitt and quickly progressed to soloist and featured dancer. Having roles in over 35 different ballets, she gained invaluable knowledge dancing traditional classical repertoire, as well as performing the choreography of Alvin Ailey, Coo San Goh, Sir Frederick Ashton, Agnes De Mille, Ruth Page and numerous Balanchine works. Sugar Plum Fairy, Snow Queen and Clara from the Nutcracker, Pas de Trois from Swan Lake, and Bluebird pas de demux from Sleeping Beauty were some of her featured roles. After retiring from the stage, Ms. Romito was invited by Milwaukee Ballet Artistic Director Basil Thompson to assume the role of Assistant to the Ballet Master where she maintained such duties as rehearsing and staging major productions including Swan Lake, Giselle and Coppelia. As a result she was then appointed to the position of Assistant Ballet Mistress under Artistic Director Dane LaFontsee. Her responsibilities included daily scheduling of all company rehearsals, instruction of company and professional trainee classes, and rehearsing classics such as The Nutcracker, Les Sylphides, Cinderella and Balanchine’s Who Cares? Her early training gave her the opportunity to take many leading roles in a variety of dance styles including ballet, jazz, tap and ballroom partnered dancing. She received extensive American and International training with some of the world’s top instructors including Richard Ellis and Christine DuBaoulay, former artists with the Sandler’s-Wells Royal Ballet, Larry Long, designated as one of the top 20th century Ballet Masters and featured in the book “The Art of Teaching Ballet”, and the Joffrey Ballet School, New York. Ms. Romito was a cherished instructor with the Milwaukee Ballet and School for over 15 years teaching intermediate through advanced dancers including summer intensive workshops. She has been a featured guest instructor with many pre-professional ballet schools throughout the midwest. Currently she lives in New Berlin, Wisconsin with her husband and daughter.