Tahra Neaves
Tahra started Physical Culture at the age of 5 and then moved onto Ballroom Dance lessons at the age of 11. She continued her training and competed for approximately 10 years in Ballroom, Latin and New Vogue.
DIRECTOR, EISTEDDFOD TEAMS, HIP HOP & JAZZ TECHNIQUE
Tahra started Physical Culture at the age of 5 and then moved onto Ballroom Dance lessons at the age of 11. She continued her training and competed for approximately 10 years in Ballroom, Latin and New Vogue.
Whilst studying a BA Arts, Tahra began classes in commercial jazz and hip hop, which led to various performances at corporate and local events. At 21, she then auditioned for and joined Warner Village Theme Parks as a Suit Character and Dancer. Whilst working, she began teaching for various dance schools and high schools in QLD. This is when her passion for teaching began and soon became her focus and full-time work.
In 2015, Tahra purchased Street Jam, an established studio of 18 years and so began the journey of Rize Dance Company. Tahra’s aim is to inspire & encourage and be the example to her student’s, that with hard work and the right attitude you can achieve anything.
TRAINING
She continued her training and competed for approximately 10 years in Ballroom, Latin and New Vogue. Whilst studying a BA Arts, Tahra began classes in commercial jazz and hip hop, which led to various performances at corporate and local events. At 21, she then auditioned for and joined Warner Village Theme Parks as a Suit Character and Dancer
WORK EXPERIENCE
Whilst working, she began teaching for various dance schools and high schools in QLD. This is when her passion for teaching began and soon became her focus and full-time work.
RIZE DANCE COMPANY
In 2015, Tahra purchased Street Jam, an established studio of 18 years and so began the journey of Rize Dance Company. Tahra’s aim is to inspire & encourage and be the example to her student’s, that with hard work and the right attitude you can achieve anything.
Nina Green
CONTEMPORARY, LYRICAL & EISTEDDFOD TEAMS
Nina has trained from the young age of 3 in all genres of dance. She has been trained by some of Australia’s best and well known choreographers and teachers. Nina completed her Certificate IV in dance in 2016 at Ikin Dance, and her Diploma of dance in 2019 at Ev and Bow in Sydney.
Nina has a love and passion for teaching and has been teaching for the past 8 years both on the Gold Coast and in Sydney. She is very passionate about dance and believes everyone has the ability to achieve. She inspires to give back to the younger years all that she has learnt so far.
Madison Tampoe
JAZZ, HIP HOP & EISTEDDFOD TEAMS
As a former student and after completing 2 years of full time dance training, Madison will be joining us through out the year. She will play an integral part of working with our performance groups, assisting the students with the latest trends in choreography.
Imogen Hasney
STARZ, MINI’S, EISTEDDFOD TEAMS, HIP HOP, JAZZ, LYRICAL, CONTEMPORARY & TECHNIQUE
Since the age of five, Imogen had a persistent passion for dance that drove her to begin training at Kay Flynn Dancing Academy and later Street Jam Dance (now Rize Dance Company).
She realised early on in her dance career that her love for dance extended not only to performing but sharing her knowledge with students.
After completing two years of full time training at Conroy Performing Arts Centre,
Imogen has worked as a promotional and corporate event dancer for various Entertainment Agencies and you can find her performing at Dreamworld Australia as a resident dancer/entertainer.
She has taught at numerous schools and studios around the Gold Coast and Brisbane and is passionate about delivering quality, fun and safe dance education that gives each student the opportunity to grow and shine.
Midori Lotz
RAD CLASSICAL BALLET
Midori is a dedicated ballet and conditioning coach. She is currently a registered teacher with the Royal Academy of Dance and a member of the Examiner’s Panel.
Midori studied under Joy Ransley at the Ransley Dance Centre before later graduating from The Australian Ballet School with an Advanced Diploma of Dance – during which time she performed with The Australian Ballet Dancers’ Company for two consecutive years.
Midori then joined the Houston Ballet, where she performed in ballets such as Swan Lake, La Bayadere, The Sleeping Beauty, La Fille Mal Gardee, Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, La Sylphide, Nureyev’s Don Quixote, Coppélia, Balanchine’s Symphony in C, and Ben Stevenson’s The Nutcracker.
Midori’s educational training and professional credits provide a wonderful base for teaching and sharing her knowledge of classical ballet.
She is also a Pilates mat, reformer, and Yoga teacher, and believes in training the whole person in dance.
Cathie Hanson
RAD CLASSICAL BALLET
Cathie Hanson is a registered RAD and ATOD teacher with thirty five years teaching experience.
She is experienced in teaching Ballet, Contemporary, Jazz, Strength/ Technique, and National
Character classes for all ages.
Her teaching experience includes establishing a dance school from the ground up, successfully
building it to around 200 students over twelve years. During that time she prepared students for
RAD and ATOD exams, eisteddfods and concerts. After becoming pregnant with twin girls, Cathie
sold her school and continued to work for various schools on the Gold Coast.
Although qualified and experienced in teaching students of all ages, Cathie’s passion and area of
expertise is teaching young children. She adores filling their lives with the magic of dance, while
also instilling the correct technical foundations on which to build more advanced dance skills. She
loves exploring children’s individual personalities and individual learning styles, in order to find the
most effective teaching strategies for each child.
Cathie’s highly creative approach makes her classes both fun and exciting. She also a Bachelor of
Business majoring in Health Information Management, holds a Blue Card and is dedicated to
ongoing education in the areas of dance education.
Amanda Taylor
SENIOR JAZZ & SENIOR TECHNIQUE
Amanda is the Managing Director of Chase Creations and has been a professional dancer and choreographer for over 20 years.
Amanda began dancing at the tender age of 5, training in all styles of dance.
Her professional career as seen her travel the world performing in numerous corporate events, large stage shows, cruise ships, backing music artist, and most recent at end off her preforming career sharing the stage with Jessica Mauboy at the handover ceremony for 2018 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.
Amanda has choreographed for events, large and small, catering to the vision and specific
requests from each individual client. As the Gold Coast’s NRL Titans cheerleader coach, Amanda is familiar with large scale visuals and has an understanding of the particular choreography that is required to appeal to a vast audience. With this in mind, Amanda’s extensive dance career and industry knowledge allows her to create and execute choreography that is requested for any event.
Client credits include, Audi, Riviera Boats Australia, Flight Centre, Event Cinemas, The Australian Hancock Swimming Trails 2018, McDonalds, Channel 7 Dance Boss Launch and BAT Product Launch PNG – Fiji – Solomon Island and Sydney just name a few.
Lauren Nairne
ACROBATICS & MUSICAL THEATRE
Born here on the Gold Coast, Lauren started dancing at the age of 2 under the direction of Peta McKenney at Paradise Performers Academy.
After completing year 12, Lauren moved to Sydney in 2005 and studied 1 year intensive training at ED5International. Graduating with a Certificate V in Performing Arts and using the skills and industry insights she had gained in all her training Lauren landed a job with the international production company, Millennium Entertainment International. For the best part of the next 8 years, Lauren continued to work for MEI as company member and production assistant for their many touring productions throughout Asia and the Middle East.
Highlights included performing for the Princess of Thailand in Bangkok on Cartoon Networks Cartoonival and also being flown to Abu Dhabi to perform at the birthday party of the son of the Sheikh as part of the cast of Barney’s Musical Castle.
Infused with a love of travel and a burning desire to see more of the world, Lauren joined the prestigious Princess Cruise Lines “Pacific Princess” as Singer/Dancer for its Inaugural World Cruise in 2008.
Having grown as a performer, Lauren moved into the role of Choreographer for Millennium Entertainment International and Smile Live Productions. She choreographed her first arena spectacular in 2010 with Barney’s Space Adventure and in 2012 was lucky enough to be invited to Norway to choreograph a world-first production of City Of Friends – Mystery in Friends’ Forest.
After 8 years of some amazing travelling adventures and lots of wonderful memories, Lauren is now back settled on the Gold Coast with her family, husband and 2 gorgeous girls Poppy and Grace. Her focus is now on creating well-rounded, grounded and confident performers who are passionate about being the best possible versions of themselves. Passing on her many years of industry experience and dedication to dance Lauren loves being part of the team at Rize.
Giselle Poncet
RAD CLASSICAL BALLET
Giselle began dancing when she was 4 years old. She trained in Murwillumbah and on the Gold Coast with teachers including Prudence Bowen, Danielle Williams, Judith Easton, Fiona Munroe, Paul Boyd, and Louise Deleur, to name a few. She won many scholarships, Eisteddfods and awards and performed in several productions with Gold Coast Youth Ballet, Gold Coast Dancers Company and others.
Giselle was accepted into 4 European Ballet Schools and went on a scholarship to John Neumeier’s Hamburg Ballet School at age 16 in 2003. After graduating from Hamburg, where she also had the opportunity to perform in several ballets with the company, her career took her to Vienna State Opera Ballet, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Slovak National Ballet and as a Soloist to Regensburg Ballet, Coburg Ballet, Magdeburg Ballet, Ballet Linz and Lunenburg Ballet.
Giselle has had the opportunity to perform in many of the great classics including The Nutcracker, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, as well as in contemporary and modern works, some that were created for her. Giselle has been teaching for 14 years alongside her career, some of her previous students were accepted into European Ballet Schools, she returned home in 2018.
Talina Cauchi
TAP & ACROBATICS
Talina began her dancing on the Gold Coast at the age of 5. She has trained her whole life in all styles at Paradise Performers Academy under owners Peta Norton, Chelsee Grioli & most recently as The Studio Entertainment under Sarah & Jesse Rasmussen. She found a love for helping kids achieve their goals and started assisting classes at the age of 13. By the age of 15, she was teaching her own classes. She has taught all ages and all styles to groups, solos, duos & trios. She has created award winning routines and has such joy watching her students perform on stage.
During this time, Talina completed a fulltime dance course where she obtained her cert III & IV in Fitness and cert IV in dance. Talina has worked professionally at Movie World in both Fright Nights and White Christmas. She was lucky enough to be a featured dancer in Amy Sharks music video ‘Adore’ and in 2016, danced at the SeaFM World Famous Rooftop Party. Talina has also done many professional corporate gigs with both Velvet Rope Entertainment & Killer Creative Entertainment.
She thrives dancing and also feels a great joy teaching dance and sharing her knowledge to younger students. She loves seeing them grow and feels so lucky to have her passion, be her career.
Nick Mills
SENIOR HIP HOP & SENIOR TAP
Kalahni Spink
JAZZ
Kalahni Spink has been dancing since age 2, and is trained in all styles including Jazz, Tap, Musical Theatre, Hip hop, Ballet, Contemporary, Acrobatics, Singing and Acting. In 2021 she completed her Certificate IV in Musical Theatre.
Kalahni has appeared in numerous feature films and stage shows including a lead dancer in the 2019 feature film, “Dora and The Lost City of Gold”, contracted at Dracula’s Cabaret in Drax4kids for 3 years and now performing in “Burlesque” at Desire on the Gold Coast.
Kalahni aims to inspire the younger generation to be their authentic selves. She is passionate about providing a nurturing environment where every student has the opportunity to grow and shine.
Rize Dance Company
Rize Dance Company is based in Bundall on the Gold Coast. We offer classes for children aged 3 years to Young Adult Dancers. We have classes for fun and for those wanting to compete and perform on a regular basis. We offer classes in Jazz, Hip Hop, Contemporary, Lyrical, Musical Theatre, Tap, Acrobatics, RAD Classical Ballet and Cabaret.
Quick Links
On The Map
Copyright © 2021 Rize Dance Company | All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy
SEO & Website Design by SEO Web Logistics