Who We Are
IDC
Where Memories Are Made!
At Ignite Dance Company, we believe in providing the community with state-of-the-art shows and performances that truly make an impact. We train our dancers to be an outstanding group of performers that really bring each of our productions to life.
Ignite Dance company is a youth pre-professional dance company for ages 10 and up. This modern based company is designed to provide young dancers with a greater opportunity for performance both in the convention circuit and community outreach.
It serves as an excellent preparation for dance programs at universities as well as a professional career in dance performance.
Members will be exposed to a variety of master classes by acclaimed visiting artists and travel to conventions to compete in and take classes.
We have an amazing preschool program, creative movement for children, and open classes for recreational dancers.
Come see what we’re all about, and start your dance experience with us today!
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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Janene began a love and passion for dance at a very early age. She has over 30 years of dance experience, with training in clogging, tap, ballet, jazz, modern, lyrical, hip hop, and contemporary dance.Janene grew up in Grace, Idaho. She began her first dance experience in clogging. She danced with the the Black Canyon Cloggers under the direction of Valorie Anderson. They competed all of over Idaho and Utah winning many awards. She was a three year Drill Team member at Grace High School, Co-Captain her Senior year, and helped choreograph all their routines.She began her formal dance training in Logan, Utah with Tueller School of Dance under the direction of Valeen Tueller and Tina Comadena. She competed with Tuellers in the convention circuit and won numerous scholarships. She also took classes at the Cache Civic Ballet.From 1998-2000, Janene helped her sister open up and run a local dance studio teaching jazz, tap, ballet, and pointe. This is where she truly learned to love teaching dance.Janene was awarded a two year dance scholarship to perform with the Utah State Sunburst singers and dancers team under the direction of Derek Furch and Rachel Morealle. They toured with their production to Iowa, Sun Valley, and numerous sites in Utah. Janene continued her dance education at Southern Utah University. She studied under Shauna Mendini, Kay Anderson, Gwen Grimes, and Paul Ocampo. She was a student choreographer for the Breaking Boundaries concert as well as the Vital Dance Concert. She was invited to attend the American College Dance Festival in Long Beach California and Montana both times performing in the Gala concert. She was an SUU Waukeenyan dancer for one year and received her Bachelors degree from SUU in Dance Education with an minor in Health. Janene has received many choreography awards throughout her tenure in the dance. She won the Ensemble award for the SUPAF Southern Utah Performing Arts Festival. She had a featured piece in the St. George Contemporary Dance Concert. She also won the Dance America National’s in the advanced contemporary routine, overall top Junior contemporary, and has choreographed many drill team routines that have won at multiple region and state competitions.From 2002 to 2016 Janene has been very involved in the drill team world. She helped assist Parowan, Canyon View, and Cedar High School. She has won Region 9 times once as an assist and once as a head coach of Cedar High School. She took 3rd overall at State twice as head Coach receiving a 2nd Overall in dance routine, and was nominated twice for coach of the year while coaching at Cedar High. She was able to perform at a REAL soccer game with her team. She collaborated and brought local drill teams together in performing in the Utah Summer Games. She established the Ignite Dance Workshop and Competition as a fundraiser for Cedar High School. She has also taught at multiple studios and was an Adjunct Professor at Dixie College and continues to Adjunct for SUU as a Jazz/Modern teacher.Her first year with IDC, they won "Best NU Group" at Nuvo Dance Convention and performed in the closing show.As a mother of five, Janene has always loved to connect and mentor dance students. She strives to focus on their potential and bring out the best in them. She does her best to continue her dance education by attending professional dance conventions and teacher workshops. She is innovative, dedicated, and passionate about every thing she does. She is so excited for this new adventure to bring another avenue to young dancers with Ignite Dance Company. Janene is so blessed to have the love and support from family and friends and can't thank them enough for their positive influence in her life.
Meet Our Staff
Where the Passion Begins
IDC STAFF
Because it matters when our whole heart and soul goes into the Dancer!
Hillary Stemmons
Billing Administrator
Bio Coming Soon
Brittney Jolley
Administrator
Brittney brings a deep love of dance and a strong background in education and administration to her role as Administrative Assistant. She taught dance for four years and was a Zumba instructor for over a decade, during which time she also co-owned successful Zumba studio. Brittney’s passion for dance led her to teach in the Fitness Department at Utah Valley University as an adjunct professor.
In addition to her dance experience, Brittney spent six years teaching in elementary education and two years teaching in an online school setting. These roles helped her buiild strong communication and organizational skills, especially in working closely with both students and parents.
As a mother of three young children and a lifelong advocate for the arts, Brittney is excited to bring her energy, empathy, and experience to support the mission of the company and help ensure a positive, organized environment for dancers and their
families.
Kyndall Nakken
Assistant Director/Teacher
Kyndall grew up dancing in Mesa, Arizona at the age of 4 years old. She started competitive dance at the age of 10 training in Jazz, Lyrical, Ballet, Tap, hip hop and Contemporary. She has traveled all over to perform and compete including, California, Las Vegas, Florida, Bahamas, Greece. While in Greece I was invited to perform at one of the most prestigious amphitheater’s, as well as perform on a cruise ship as a special guest performer. Kyndall traveled to many conventions growing up including JUMP and Tremaine. As she reached high school she made the Pom Team at Mountain View High School a 5A division school. We won the state championship title in Pom 3 years in a row. During this time she continued to compete with her studio and trained to be an assistant in their teacher program. Growing up she lived and breathed dance. She danced at school on Pom, then went straight to teaching in the afternoons and then trained in the evenings. A few years after graduating high school I moved to cedar city and went to SUU to get her education degree. While attending SUU she continued to teach dance. She has her Bachelors Degree in Elementary Education. She then went on to teach for Iron County School District for 7 years. In the summer of 2021 Kyndall began teaching with Ignite. In the Summer of 2024 she completed training and received her certificate for Hot Sculpt at Bristlecone company, which she is currently teaching at also.
Shanae Hulet
Tour Director/Teacher
Shanae Hulet was born and raised in Cedar City. Shanae married her high school sweetheart, and they have 3 beautiful girls who all love to dance. Shanae has been dancing her whole life. It is truly her love and passion. She began dancing at a local studio at the age of 3 and continued her dance education there until she was 17 years old. Shanae was on the Canyon View Drill team for all her high school years. She has continued in her dance career as a teacher at Ignite Dance Company. She has taught and choreographed many routines and continues to share her love for dance. Shanae has been volunteering her time and efforts to the Children's Justice Center for the last 3 seasons of "Dancing with the Community Stars" event. She has worked many hours sharing her time and talent with our community and dancers.
Liz Condie
Sparks Director/Teacher
Elizabeth Carter grew up dancing in St George, Utah. She trained in jazz, tap, ballet, modern, musical theatre, and spent three years performing on Dixie High School’s drill team. After high school, she received her bachelor’s degree from Brigham Young University, where she trained mainly in the modern program, but also took jazz, tap and ballroom classes. She has been teaching dance for over four years now, after taking a break for motherhood. While growing up she enjoyed performing in faraway places like Japan and Hawaii. She also loved her time as the Dance Captain and Drill team President during high school. Dance has always been her greatest passion and she truly enjoys cultivating a love of dance within all of her students.
Andelin Mbaki
Octane Director/Teacher
Andelin Mbaki is from Cape Town, South Africa but now resides in Cedar City, Utah with her family. She is a student at Southern Utah University where she is double majoring in Exercise Science and Dance Education, one day hoping to go into Physical Therapy and incorporating Dance and Dance Therapy in her work. Andelin has been dancing since she was 7 and found her passion in Hiphop when she was 10years old.
In South Africa, Andelin had been assisting her dance coaches at age 14, had performed on national television, had competed at South Africa’s National ArtScape Theatre since 6th grade, danced throughout high school, and is a Winner of South Africa, Cape Town’s High School Jam Competition in the Dance and Choreography division.
Andelin then moved to Cedar City and is continuing her passion at Ignite Dance Company. She started off assisting the hiphop dance classes, to later instructing all the hiphop classes, then extending to assisting the Sparks Preschool program, co-teaching Ballroom and instructing Cheer Prep! Andelin loves to perform and is on the SUU Ballroom Dance Company. She is willing to keep working hard and learning new things!
Ignite holds a dear place in Andelin’s heart and she loves sharing her love of dance with the dancers and more importantly she loves them and wants to be a great example to them!
IDC STAFF
IDC IS THE PLACE TO BE
WE DANCE DIFFERENTLY
Britney Whitney
Company Ballet Director
Britney Whitney has been teaching for the last 20 years as a recreational and competitive teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada and Southern Utah. She has choreographed numerous award-winning routines, both regionally and nationally.
Britney was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada. She graduated from Las Vegas Academy of the Arts High School as a dance major and then received her Bachelors in Dance Performance from Southern Utah University. During her time at SUU, she received many prestigious awards including “Outstanding Contributor in Dance,” “Outstanding Graduating Senior,” and “Outstanding Choreographer” as well as, dance scholarships including the Kay Andersen Dance Scholarship and San Christopher Scholarship. Britney is also a member of the National Dance Education Organization and is a certified yoga instructor through Yoga Alliance.
She has been blessed with several performance opportunities in her dance career that has allowed her to dance throughout the country. She has danced for numerous choreographers such as Charlotte Boye-Christensen, Joanna Kotze, Megan Brunsvold, Patricia Meredith, Kay Andersen, and Missy Cochran. Britney was also a member of Shifting Velocity Dance Company, a modern dance company based out of Southern Utah, under the direction of Denise Purvis. Some of her many other credits include performing in an award-winning short dance film titled, “Where We Begin” by Mitsuyo Miyazaki, a background dancer in High School Musical Two, and performing in many industrials in Las Vegas.
Chris Mills
Ballet Director
As a young dancer, Christine was among those chosen in the Los Angeles area to perform in the New York City Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Nutcracker, the Bolshoi Ballet's production of Ballet School, and the Leningrad Kirov Ballet's Cinderella. She was awarded study scholarships at both The Rebecca Harkness Ballet Company in the U.S. as well as the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School in Canada. In her adulthood, Christine became a member of Burch Mann's American Folk Ballet. In 2003, Ms. Mills founded the Cedar City Junior Ballet company. Her teaching technique utilizes the I.S.T.D. (Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing) graded ballet syllabus. This syllabus combines French, Russian, and Italian classical techniques in a logical progression of learning with a strong emphasis on technical excellence, musicality, and the creative expression of each student.
Brinley Allred
Teacher
Brinley was born and raised in Cedar City. She has been dancing for 22 years. She has trained in many styles of dance including ballet, contemporary, jazz, modern, and hiphop. She danced competitively throughout middle school, high school and in college. She graduated from Southern Utah University with a Bachelors of Science in Nursing. Brinley has been teaching at Ignite Dance Company for 5 years and LOVES it. She loves sharing her passion of dance with her students. Her favorite styles to teach are jazz fusion and hiphop. Brinley loves being a wife to Jaxon and mother to the sweetest baby girl and future IDC dancer.
Destini Watts
Teacher
Destini’s love for dance started at the young age of 3. She grew up being technically trained in ballet, pointe, modern, jazz, tap, musical theatre, lyrical, breaking, and hip-hop. She would continue on to compete with local studio teams as team captain in these various styles while also broadening her dance education through the convention route. She was honored to have been awarded multiple scholarships and internships which gave her the opportunity to learn from and work alongside extremely talented and well-renowned mentors. She danced for 3 consecutive years with Odyssey’s “Thriller” at Tuacahn and it remains to be one of her most cherished dance experiences. Destini started her teaching career at the age of 15 and hasn’t looked back since. She now enjoys continuing her dance career in training dancers, setting choreography on competing teams and recreational classes, master classes, as well as stage management.
Lawerence Mbaki
Teacher
Lawrence Mbaki is from the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa. He is a junior with a double major in theater arts and music education. Lawrence Mbaki is from the beautiful city of Cape Town, South Africa. He is a junior with a double major in theater arts and music education. He has been dancing ballroom for 4 years and is on the SUU ballroom Tour Team. Dancing and teaching ballroom dancing is one of the joys of his life.
Chandler Gidget
Teacher
Chandler Guzzle began her formal dance training at a young age and has over 25 years of experience in ballet, jazz, tap, modern, pointe, and contemporary styles. Raised in a family of dancers, she grew up competing and attending conventions across the U.S., earning national titles and scholarships individually and with her teams. Chandler has trained under esteemed instructors like Rowland Butler, Carol Iwasaki, Annette Jones, and Cheryl Gilger, and has worked with renowned choreographers such as Justin Giles, Mandy Moore, and Liz Imperio.
A graduate of Southern Utah University (SUU), Chandler began her ballroom dancing career with the Tour Team under Andrea Johnson’s direction. She competed and performed professionally in Standard Ballroom and International Latin styles throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. After graduation, she continued dancing professionally while working with Giacamo Agrello, Thomas and Isabella Lewendowski, Rick Robinson, and others.
Chandler recently completed a four-year tenure as Director of the SUU Ballroom Dance Company and is pursuing an MFA in Arts Administration. She continues to choreograph for various companies and schools nationwide
Ellie Wood
Teacher
Ellie Wood is from Herriman, Utah, and brings over 15 years of dance experience to the studio. She trained at Tiffany Dance Co. and also cheered for two years on her high school team, serving as captain during her time there.Ellie is currently studying Elementary Education at Southern Utah University and has a passion for working with children. She loves how dance allows her to express emotion and creativity, and she’s excited to share that passion with her students.She loves Dr. Pepper, traveling, and her social life!
Tristan Kaiser
Teacher
Bio Coming Soon
Katie White
Teacher
Bio Coming Soon
Brittney Corry
Teacher
Bio Coming Soon