Ciara Miller
Ciara has been a part of the EMC staff since the inception of the PA studio. She is widely known throughout the Southern York County and Hanover areas for her work in their theaters and schools both in dance education and musical theater training. She graduated from The William Penn Performing Arts Institute in York, PA and continued her education in New York City at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, as well as Broadway Dance Center. Ciara’s training includes ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, modern, bellydance, musical theatre, and competitive ballroom in Adagio Partnering.

Ashley Spears
Ashley Spears is a graduate of the Baltimore School for the Arts where her extensive ballet training was in Vaganova, Cecchetti, and Balanchine techniques. While at BSA, Ashley studied with Norma Pera, Roberto Munos, and Eddie Stewart as well as worked with guest masters such as Hinton Battle, David Grenke, and John Clifford. Ashley received further training from intensive programs and classes at renowned institutions such as The Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, The Alvin Ailey School, American Ballet Theater, The Briansky Ballet Center, Hartford Ballet, and Ballet Academy East. While at these institutions, she worked with master teachers and choreographers like Franco De Vita, David Howard, and Peggy Lyman. Aside from ballet, Ashley has also studied the modern and jazz techniques of Graham, Cunningham, Horton, Fosse, Giordano, and Limone. As a young dancer, Ms. Spears trained for and participated in graded examinations for The Royal Academy of Dance syllabus under the guidance of Patti Enoch at Towson University’s Children’s Dance Division. After high school, she trained as an apprentice for The Joffrey Ballet, in which she later danced corps de ballet roles such as Swan Lake, La Bayadere, and Billy the Kid. In 2002, she spent the summer at the Institute Nationale a Rouen in France—studying both French language and culture as well as dance. Ashley is a graduate of Towson University with a major in English and a minor in French and is currently pursuing her masters in Biology. For the last seven years, Ashley has taught and choreographed ballet, jazz, and modern dance at schools throughout the area including the Rage Box Contemporary Dance Center, The Dance Conservatory of Maryland, Towson University’s Children’s Dance Division, and Common Ground Dance Company. Ashley found her artistic home in 2005 when she joined the staff at Experimental Movement Concepts as ballet director as well as took on the role of director of The Susquehanna Youth Ballet. As a teacher and company director, Ashley believes that dance teaches far more than physical skills. It teaches students how to follow through, to achieve goals, and retain commitments. It teaches the rewards of hard work and nurtures positive relationships. Most importantly, Ashley believes that dance teaches students to accept only their best and encourages them to strive to be extraordinary.

Ashly Hamilton
Ashly received her A.A. degree in Dance performance from Cecil College and is currently enrolled at Towson University as a Dance Performance and Education major. She has trained with numerous instructors in ballet, jazz, tap, modern and hip-hop for the past 10 years. While attending Cecil College she was awarded a Scholarship for excellence in dance from the Cecil County Arts Council. Ms. Hamilton has received additional training from Goucher College Summer intensive, Maryland Dance Festival, and Co. Dance Competition in which she was recognized out of over 200 girls with a Red Ribbon from Maryanne Lamb(original cast member of Broadway’s “Chicago”) for excellence in dance. She was also the recipient of various scholarships while attending Maryland Dance festival including one week summer intensive at Kinetics. In 2008 she was given the opportunity to dance in the film Step Up 2 as a background dancer. Other performances include title roles in Chrous Line, Nutcracker, Beauty and the Best, Aladdin, and Little Mermaid.

Rachel Cyr
Rachel is a graduate of the University of Connecticut with a BFA in Theatre Arts. She comes to us with a strong theatre background. She was the acting coach during the 2009 Broadway Intensive at Experimental Movement Concepts. Due to rave reviews of the program, she has joined the Musical Theatre Department. In addition to the theatre, she is also a skilled dance instructor and will be teaching several different levels of dancers at EMC this fall.

Kristen Tirocchi
Kristen began her dance training at the early age of 3 years old. Since then, Kristen has developed a dance background that consists of Ballet, Pointe, Jazz, Tap, Modern, Hip Hop, and Competition Jazz Dance. In 2008, Kristen graduated from Towson University with a B.F.A. degree in Dance Performance and Education, along with a minor in English. While at Towson, Kristen had the opportunity to study with various faculty and guest artists, to perform in many concerts, and she also choreographed a dance for the camera piece which won second place in the 2006 Student Media Arts Festival. Also, during her time at Towson, Kristen had the opportunity to attend various dance and art conferences, such as Bates Dance Festival, American College Dance Festival, Arts Advocacy Day 2007, and the Florida Dance Festival. In 2007, Kristen received a position to perform professionally with the Baltimore Lady Blackbirds dance team during the football league's inaugural season. Kristen’s main passion is teaching dance to children of all ages, and she has done so for the past 5 years. Currently, Kristen enjoys being a dance teacher at EMC and also a dancer of Impulse Movement Project in Baltimore, Maryland.

Madison Bonvissuto
Maddie has been spinning and twirling since the age of four. She has danced with Praise Ballet, formerly in White Marsh, Maryland, Towson University's Children's Dance Division, and for the past four years, here at Experimental Movement Concepts. Madison is a member of The Susquehanna Youth Ballet, and EMC's Company Elite. She has been in EMC's Teacher Training Program for the past three years as an assistant, and currently, as a student-teacher. She absolutely loves working with her "little ones", and enjoys choreography as well.