Silhouette Dance Society will be welcoming Ellen Greenacre as its new hip-hop instructor this upcoming season, which starts on Sept. 14.
“It’s going to be a great addition to our program,” said Silhouette Artistic Director Jake Hastey. “I think she brings a lot of experience.”
Greenacre, originally from England, said she started dancing at the age of three, and it has been a part of her life ever since.
“I started off when my mom put me in lessons at three years old,” said Greenacre. “I started off just doing ballet, but then I got into jazz, tap and hip-hop. I did that until I was seven years old and then we moved to Ireland, and I started doing Irish dance as well, which is just a style of solo dancing that you do at competitions.”
Greenacre said that when she moved to Canada, her dancing repertoire greatly expanded, and hip-hop appealed to her as an instructor because it is fast paced, exciting, and easy to pick up.
“I’m hoping to bring the fun of hip-hop to Silhouette. I like a lot of the streamlined hip-hop where it’s really fast and hard-hitting. I also like to do house and some popping,” she said, adding that her first class in St. Paul will be on Sept. 16. “It’s fun, it’s fast and it’s easy to pick up, anybody can do it. Ballet is very strict and proper, and you can pick it up, but it won’t be as easy as it would be to somebody who’s doing it every day.”
Hastey added that dancers at Silhouette have a lot to look forward to in the upcoming season, as the dance society plans to take its students on the road to New York City in April of 2014.
“We’ll be taking classes at a variety of different dance programs, as well as meeting some professional artists and attending shows,” said Hastey. “I do my teacher training and certification through a school called the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School of Ballet, and it’s part of American Ballet Theatre’s teacher training program, so we may be visiting them and some students may even be taking exams while we’re in New York, so we have lots of options.”
Hastey added that a few special guest instructors from around the world will also be coming to St. Paul to share their dancing expertise with local students.
“We’re bringing in a guest teacher from New York to teach in the beginning of 2014, and we’re having a guest teacher come who is a former teacher at the National Ballet School of Iceland come out in October.”
Silhouette will be holding a final registration day on Sept. 11 at the Co-op Mall from 5-8 p.m.
