Our Team

Emma Young - DWKC Studio Director

Emma began dancing at age four in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Upon relocating to the U.S., her passion for performing lead to three professional contracts with Radio City Entertainment as Clara in the Christmas Spectacular. Her love for dance drove her to strive for excellence; she further advanced her dance technique by attending American Ballet Theatre summer programs, Complexions Contemporary Ballet Intensive, The Sessions, Point Park University’s Intensive and classes at the National Ballet of Canada.

Through dedication and training, she excelled in competitive dance while attending Juliana’s Academy of Dance in Madison Heights, Michigan. She has won numerous regional and national overall top soloist awards and national titles with Showbiz, Star Systems, West Coast Dance Explosion, and Hollywood Connection, among others. She was also a 4 time semi-finalist at the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix International ballet competition.

She is honored to have worked with amazing teachers and mentors like Desmond Richardson, Wes Chapman, Stephanie Tooman, Valentina Barsukova, Chris Jacobsen, Michael Lemanski, and many other esteemed dance professionals. In addition, she received her vocal and musical theatre training in New York City with Bob Marks.

She was excited to be accepted into the Dance Conservatory program at SUNY Purchase. While studying there, she was a soloist in a Jessica Lang repertoire piece and performed as Clara in The Nutcracker ballet. During this time, she was also a member of the Detroit Dolls dance team.

Emma moved to Kansas City in 2017 upon graduating from Texas Christian University and has thrown her energy into teaching students of all ages and abilities. She continues to advance her dance teacher education with certification in Progressing Ballet Techniques, as well as, Acro and Silks training.

Sonja Schulz

Sonja Schulz is a dancer, aerialist, gymnast, teacher, and choreographer currently located in the Kansas City area. She is originally from Elk Grove Village, IL, and studied at the University of Iowa. She graduated with her BFA in Dance, BA in Economics, and 200-Hour Hatha Yoga Teaching Certification in May of 2019. She is currently performing professionally alongside teaching dance, yoga, and barre fitness classes.

Sonja is currently dancing with KC Contemporary Dance and performing at events with Quixotic throughout the year. Some of her past performances include SOMNUS (KCCD's 2020 Fall Show), Terra Luna 2020 (Quixotic's Walk-Through at the OP Arboretum), Holidays Come Alive 2020 (Quixotic at Union Station), and Open Stage at the J (2020).

She is grateful for the performances she has been able to be a part of and loves teaching younger dancers all over Kansas City. Additional studios and programs Sonja has taught at include Kansas City Ballet School, Encore! at the J, VidaDance Studio, and OutSchool (virtual teaching).

Rosemary Virgoni Tran

Rosemary started her dance journey when she was 3 years old in Phoenix, Arizona. She continued to dance at a few local dance studios when she moved to the KC metro area when she was 10. Her love for dance took her all the way through competitive dancing in her teenage years and into her undergrad years as a student-athlete. During her senior year of college she took a job position assisting and teaching combo classes here at DWC! She has loved working and being apart of this studio and even when she moved to Hawaii, she would come back to visit and help out any way she could. Rosemary is so happy to be back on the schedule teaching combo classes and it is her hope to inspire a love of dance and free movement with the young ones, just as it inspired her when she was little!

Rosemary is also a full-time yoga teacher and loves to merge both yoga and dance into her classes with breath, discipline, art, foundation, freedom, and exploration in all of her classes. Rosemary’s favorite style to teach and dance is jazz and more recently she has loved learning ballroom and street style hip hop too.

Madeline Brown

Madeline has been dancing since the age of three. She was trained in classical ballet with the Kansas City Ballet School for 15 years, where she also received training in modern, contemporary, and jazz. In high school, Madeline danced with the Kansas City Youth Ballet for three years. She also had the opportunity to perform alongside the company in The Nutcracker with the Kansas City Ballet for seven years. In The Nutcracker, she danced the roles of a polichinelle, a soldier, the party scene, Clara, lead ginger, and a marzipan. She spent one year at the Kansas School of Classical Ballet under Juan Trujillo and Stefani Schrimpf, where she performed in the corps and a pas de trois in the ballet La Bayadere.

Madeline attended two summer intensives, one at Ballet Chicago in 2012 and the other at Next Generation Ballet in Tampa, Florida, in 2014.

After graduating high school, Madeline attended Benedictine College for two years on scholarship with the Benedictine College Dance Team. During this time, she gained experience in contemporary, lyrical, hip hop, and jazz. She was also apart of the completion team, where they placed top 5 in the region.

Madeline is excited to be teaching and share her love of dance with children, and is looking forward to what the year has to bring!

Kim Generally

Kim has had movement in the blood since the beginning!

It all started with gymnastics and dance at the age of 3. She grew up training, competing, and performing in all dance styles and went on to receive her Bachelor of Arts in dance at The University of Kansas. Kim was a member of The University of Kansas Dance Company for three years and continued her dance career by opening a studio shortly afterwards.

As an entrepreneur, she became the owner and director of Relevé Dance Academy - Lake of the Ozarks for 15 years before successfully selling her business and moving back to the Kansas City area. Here she became the lead instructor and director for Dance Fusion for seven years.

Kim is an avid curator of movement within dance, but her understanding of the body and form goes beyond that community. She has a rich history within the fitness industry, where she has been certified in pilates with Peak Pilates, and taught for Fusion Fitness in 2018.

She is a technical expert, an accomplished choreographer, and a guest artist focusing on the whole body and holistic well-being within dance and movement. Kim has worked with multiple competition companies as an adjudicator, including Inferno Dance and ID Dance Competitions.

Ashtyn Toepfer

Ashtyn is a dancer and visual artist originally from a small town in Western Kansas. She began dancing at age 3 and immediately fell in love with the art. She began competing at age 5, and received training in many styles, including Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, Hiphop, Lyrical, and Acro.

Throughout high school, Ashtyn spent every free moment she had either in the studio training, or traveling to intensives, workshops, conventions, and master classes.  She attended AMDA Los Angeles Summer Intensive in 2017, and Go Pro in 2016 and 2018, where she performed at the Clay Cooper Theatre in Branson, MO. She also began teaching dance in high school, and has not stopped ever since. 

After high school, Ashtyn continued her dance training at American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in Los Angeles, CA from 2018-2019. At AMDA, she received training from many working professionals in the dance industry in a variety of styles. Since returning home, she is in the process of receiving a bachelor’s degree in Visual Art Education from KU, and plans to become an Elementary Art Teacher, while continuing her dance training and dance instructing.

Amanda Adams

Amanda Adams has 20+ years of dance experience spanning a variety of styles, including ballet, jazz, hip hop, lyrical and modern. She is passionate about teaching rhythm, movement and fundamentals to young dancers in creative ways and seeing them have fun while learning how to dance. Originally from Dallas, TX, she grew up dancing competitively in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and received an automatic invitation to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders training camp upon graduating high school, but declined to attend college at the University of Missouri. In college she participated in a studio dance scholarship program and performed with the Minnesota Ballet’s “The Nutcracker.” She also began teaching in college and continues to enjoy teaching children and adults who are new to dance to embrace it as a creative outlet, no matter your age or skill level. In August 2020 she returned to Kansas City after a 2 year stint in New York City, where she taught early childhood ballet classes at American Youth Dance Theater part time while working full time in the health care industry. Prior to that, she managed all aspects of the dance program and taught ballet, jazz and hip hop classes at an early childhood education center in Kansas City, Missouri before relocating to New York.

Amanda has a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and a Master’s degree in Public Administration in Healthcare from the University of Missouri. She currently works full time remotely for a nonprofit health plan based in New York City and is excited to be teaching ballet and tap at DanceWorks Conservatory!