CAROLINE OWINGS
Owner & Artistic Director
Caroline has had the desire to move to the music since an early age. She began taking dance classes at age four and says that most of her inspiration comes from watching old classic dance films with her grandmother. She joined her Northern Michigan dance studio’s performance company in the 4th grade and began training six days a week. With Company Dance Traverse she traveled to New York City Dance Alliance regional competitions in Lansing and Chicago. She also attended their national competition in New York City where she had the opportunity to work with Travis Wall and Andy Blankenbuehler. In 2008 she was able to perform at DisneyLand through Dance Excellence.
Her family moved to Brevard later that same year and she began training at the Ballet Conservatory of Asheville. There she had the opportunity to perform lead roles in many ballets and got to perform at the Biltmore House during the holiday season. At the age of 15, she began teaching at the Turning Pointe School of Dance in Brevard. Her love for education really took root during this time. Throughout high school she attended summer intensives with the Radio City Rockettes, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and Alonzo King’s Lines Ballet.
She then moved to New York City where she received her BFA in modern dance from Marymount Manhattan College. After her freshman year of college, she attended American Dance Festival where she worked with Twyla Tharp and got to be a part of an original work, Treefrog in Stonehenge. After graduation, she completed the Jose Limon Professional Studies program. For five years following college, she taught at Downtown Dance Factory in TriBeCa, furthering her study and enjoyment of education.
In 2019, she married Stephen and after the global pandemic, they relocated to Woodstock, Georgia. She taught at the Spirit of Dance and the Woodstock School of Ballet. Now in 2022, she has decided it is time to return home and start her dream- a studio of her own!
She is also thrilled to be joining the adjunct faculty of Brevard College in 2023.
TIFFANY SANTEIRO
Instructor
Tiffany began her professional dance career with the Genesis Dance Company and worked for the Genesis Foundation for the Arts teaching outreach programs throughout Brooklyn, The Bronx, Manhattan and Connecticut. She then went on to perform at the Metropolitan Opera with such artists as Sean Curran, Doug Varone and Julie Taymor. After receiving her MFA in Choreography from Jacksonville University, she collaborated with artists from the US, Israel, Austria, Iceland, France and South Africa to create and perform works for stage and screen. Tiffany’s works have been screened nationally and internationally. Her choreography has recently been produced by Jacksonville Dance Theatre, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Jacksonville University, Episcopal School of Jacksonville. And performed at New Seeds Festival for Women Artists, Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival, NewGrounds Dance Festival, Green Street Studios, Boston. Tiffany served as the Creative Director, choreographer and performer with Jacksonville Dance Theatre, Director of the Jacksonville Dance Film Festival and was a professor of dance at Jacksonville University. She relocated to Brevard in 2020 and is currently teaching at Mt. Sun Community school. Tiffany is thrilled to be part of Carolina Dance Collective!
REBECCA COOK
Instructor
Rebecca is an artist. Her favorite medium is musical theater. She has been singing, acting and dancing for as long as she can remember. From early on she was invited to participate in her local studio's competitive dance team. She won many regional awards as a soloist - and in hindsight - her best work were always dances with a significant theatrical responsibility. She continued to dance through a musical theater emphasis at the acclaimed School of the Arts in southern CA throughout high school. These years were followed by receiving her B.A. at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television’s Ray Bolger Musical Theater Program. Between school and her professional life some of her favorite performances have been as Kathy in Singin’ in the Rain, in the Producers, and in Happy Days the Musical for Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman/Happy Days +) and Randy Skinner (42nd St Revival and White Christmas).
She moved to Brevard in the winter of 2020 with her husband and three children. She is so grateful that Carolina Dance Collective has created more opportunities for dance, and especially musical theater in our beloved mountain town.
DAHLIA JACOBS MCGEE
Instructor
Dahlia began her dance career at the young age of three at Columbia Conservatory of Dance, where she learned the foundations of classical ballet under the instruction of prima ballerina, Mariclare Miranda. There, she performed in productions such as The Nutcracker, Lion King, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In middle school, she joined her first company as an apprentice at South Carolina Christian Dance Theater. During her time there, her love for ballet grew as well as her ability to communicate a story through dance. In 2010, her family relocated to Brevard. Briefly, she attended A Time for Dance studio where she continued ballet and began Irish step dancing. In its beginning years, Dahlia joined the company of Brevard Ballet School. She spent the most memorable years there in class, worked as an assistant instructor to Angie Wells, and performed her first lead roles, such as Myrta in Gisselle and as Cinderella.
After graduation, Dahlia attended Columbia International University where she earned her Master’s of Arts in Teaching degree in Elementary and Early Childhood Education. She now lives in the Little River valley with her husband, Nicholas, and teaches second grade at Rosman Elementary School. After some time off, she is ready to pick back up where she left off, instructing ballet at Carolina Dance Collective!
SARAH EMERY
Instructor
Sarah has been teaching dance to all ages for over 20 years in schools including the Patel Conservatory, Atlanta Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, Open Door Studios, and Ponte Vedra Ballet and Dance Company. She is a certified yoga and Pilates instructor and most recently joined the staff at Pilates Brevard.
As a choreographer, Sarah was awarded the 2022 Professional Artist Grant by Creative Pinellas and was a selected choreographer for Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company’s production of Voices 2022. She was founder/director of Watershed Dance Theatre, premiering works in Charlotte, NC and Atlanta, GA. She has produced several films for dance, receiving multiple, global official selections as well as the Viewer’s Choice Award (Dance on Screen Alabama) and Certificate of Distinction for top three global selections (Choreocollab Film Fest). She was the project tier recipient of the Choreography Connection Award through Regional Dance America (2017) which led to commissions with the Delaware Dance Company and the Canton Ballet.
Sarah was a principal dancer with Moving Poets Charlotte, a contemporary and multi-disciplinary dance company in Charlotte, NC where she later became co-artistic director. She danced with the Tulsa Ballet Theatre, North Carolina Dance Theatre (now Charlotte Ballet), Terpsicorps Theater of Dance and Omaha Theater Ballet.
Serena Gilson
Instructor
Since she could walk, Serena found the dance floor to be the place she could most be herself. She began dancing at the age of 2, training in ballet and pointe, jazz and hip hop, and her favorite style, modern, at the Joan Izzo Academy of Dance in Centreville, VA. As a part of the dance competition team, she performed throughout Virginia, where she was awarded 1st Place in Contemporary Solo Performance through Dancemakers Inc. Serena was also heavily involved in her local musical theatre program, where she had lead acting, dancing, choreography and stage manager roles in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Anything Goes, Mary Poppins and multiple Cabaret and Holiday show performances. During her college studies at Virginia Tech, Serena joined the Contemporary Dance Ensemble and Fusion Dance Team, honing in on her passion for modern dance. She received a grant to engage in an independent study, where she explored the connection between dance and nature. She also joined Salsa Tech's Performance Team, where she performed and instructed Salsa Dance in her community.
Serena and her husband, Chris, relocated to Brevard, NC in 2022 while continuing to work remotely as a water resource engineer. In Spring of 2023, Serena and Chris welcomed their daughter, Lydia, into the world. Serena is beyond excited to pair this new chapter of their family life with a new facet of her work life: teaching modern dance. Serena cannot wait to share the feeling she gets of "being herself" on the dance floor with her students!
Julie Paillaugue West
Instructor
Julie Paillaugue West started ballet, jazz and contemporary dance at the age of 3 in France and later discovered rock’n’roll, salsa, bachata and merengue. Growing up mainly at her grandparents’ beautiful farm, she is grateful for the chance to move and be free in the outdoors from a very young age, and above all creating dance and music pieces for the horses and cows around! Dancing is for her a way to create our place in this world, while releasing trauma, emotional charges, energetic imbalances and accepting all facets of the self, along with communing with elements of Nature. The healing powers of rhythms and reconnection with ancestral ways have been a passion of hers, as she curates music from all around the world.
Having experience with what is now labelled “neurodivergence” and trauma-informed practices, she is also trained in democratic education and is enthusiastic about alternative education. She loves to work with children and get to know their personality to empower them by knowing that who they truly are is enough and help them embrace their uniqueness in a safe and supportive environment.
Julie has an international Master of Science in climate change, speaks 4 languages, and lived in 6 different countries. When she is not at the studio, you’ll find her behind a computer working for the outdoor app AllTrails, or hiking, painting, knitting, gardening and discovering new herbal medicine. She is thrilled to be part of the Carolina Dance Collective, a place of perpetual reinvention!
