Team | NCADA Studio

The NCADA Team

Artistic Director

Debie Larsen

Debie Larsen has been a ballet teacher and choreographer for 45 years. She is the Artistic Director for NCADA and Colorado Dance Theatre. She is known for her creative and innovative choreography and for her love and devotion to her students and her teachers.

Managing Partner

Janna McQueen

Janna has studied dance for over 15 years, many of those at our studio. After college and a brief stint with the circus and three children later, she came back. Teaching our teeniest of ballerinas the masterful art of bouncing, freeze dance and the love of twirling. Miss Janna loves her students big and NCADA studio is her second home. But most importantly she adores living vicariously through her own ballerinas as they have a deep passion for life and the same desire to dance right through it.

Instructor

Aniela Finch

Aniela Finch grew up in Boulder, CO and began dancing at age 6 with the Boulder Ballet. Throughout her dancing years she received training from instructors that have danced with the Boulder Ballet, Colorado Ballet, and New York City Ballet, Dutch National Ballet and Joffrey ballet and Royal Ballet. During college she danced at UNC and had the privilege of dancing with Ms.Deb Larsen. She now has the joy of teaching dance at NCADA studio where her 3 girls also get to dance. Her deepest desire is to share with her students that they are loved, have a mighty purpose and to share and teach the beauty and art of ballet.

Instructor

Annie Patton

Annie Patton is thrilled to teach, and share the love of dance at NCADA with our intermediate dancers. Her love of dance started off at a young age as she enjoyed taking dance from Deb Larsen for a majority of her childhood. While getting both her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Education at UNC she continued to dance with Deb. Having now 3 children of her own she just loves seeing them dance at the same studio she grew up in. She simply wants to put the love of dance in everyone's hearts!

Instructor

Randy Downing

Randy Downing grew up in Fort Collins, and teaches tap dance in Northern Colorado. He studied tap under Broadway veteran and master tapper, Gene GeBauer for many years. He is also a massage therapist, and works at Encore Dance Emporium in Loveland. He has participated in many dance and musical theatre productions along the Front Range, including playing Father Stahlbaum and the beautiful Mother Ginger in the Nutcracker Ballet. He has also played Gepetto in Pinocchio, Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Dr. Coppelius in Coppelia.

Instructor

Mikaela Degitis

Mikaela is one of our teachers who has quite literally grown up at the studio. She began dancing at the age of three and continues to study today — it is her belief that learning should never stop. For Mikaela, dance has always been an outlet for the cast emotions of the human experience. According to Mikaela, “That’s what makes dance so beautiful — you can show people how you feel.” It is her goal to give her students the technical foundation that is necessary to put the depths of the human spirit on display.

Instructor

Carly Bray

Carly Bray has been dancing at Northern Colorado Academy of Dance Arts for 23 years. She has been a teacher at NCADA for 8 years and has enjoyed teaching ballet, hip hop,tap, jazz and lyrical. She is currently teaching jazz and lyrical and loves her students and classes. Carly also teaches dance at Frontier Academy’s homeschool “Access” program and is a rehearsal director for Colorado Dance Theatre’s The Nutcracker. When Carly’s not teaching she loves being at home with her husband Colten, her son Luke and all her animals. Dance has always been a party of Carly’s life and she hopes to continue teaching for years to come.

Instructor

Monica Taplin

Monica grew up dancing at a pre-professional ballet studio in Montana. There, she danced with their Company and performed in ballets such as Giselle, Romeo and Juliet, Coppelia, Don Quixote, and more. Monica also studied Horton and Graham Modern technique, both at her studio and in college. Monica began teaching dance in college as well, where she discovered her calling on her life was not in engineering, but in teaching. She has been teaching since 2013, and while she completed her undergraduate work in engineering, she went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Dance Education from UNC. Monica’s teaching style prioritizes deep technical understanding, anatomical awareness, muscular strength and endurance, and artistry to develop the whole dancer, create a strong foundation, prevent injury, and nurture dancers’ love for the art

Instructor

Tiffany Dann

Tiffany Dann absolutely loves teaching dance at NCADA. For Tiffany, it is not just about the steps in dance, it is the passion and intention behind those steps. She has had many students over the years, and each one has their own unique story to tell through this beautiful art form. She began dancing at 3 years old, and her dance education continues to this very day. .

Instructor

Elisableth King

Elisabeth started dancing at the age of 3 and joined the dance family at Greeley Recreational Academy of Dance Arts in 2002 when she was 7 years old. Elisabeth fell in love with her new studio, and she admired the jazz and lyrical dances the older girls would do. She decided to teach herself the jazz and lyrical dances from the recital videos that were available every year after the June recital, and she continued to do so until she was 13 years old. In 2010, she was given the opportunity to become an assistant dance teacher. The following year she was given classes of her own and she began teaching jazz, lyrical, and pre-elementary ballet and tap. She is overjoyed to be pursuing her passion of teaching dance again.

Instructor

Ally Lonac

Ally Lonac started dancing at the age of seven back before it was even called NCADA and was still housed in the basement of the Senior Center. She immediately fell in love with dancing and all of her friends and teachers at the studio. She taught a variety of classes and ages at the studio, which made her want to be a teacher. She graduated from UNC in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in English Secondary Education. Ally moved to Arizona for five years to teach English and she quickly got involved in teaching dance classes there as well. During this time, Ally earned her master’s degree in School Counseling. Ally now lives in Fort Collins teaching 7th grade English. She’s thrilled to live close enough to commute back and forth for dance. Ally literally passes right by three different dance studios on her drive to NCADA each time, but the drive is worth it to be with her dance family.

Instructor

Brandy Sanchez

Brandy started dancing when she was 4 years old. She enjoyed dancing in all different genres; jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical, Pom and hip hop. She danced all the way through high school, joining a competitive dance team as a freshman and was given the privilege to teach as a junior and senior. Dance has always been a passion for her, even through having four children and being a homeschool mom. Watching her own girls dance has been such a wonderful blessing. She is so honored and excited to be teaching jazz (her favorite dance genre) and Mommy and Me ballet at NCADA.

Instructor

Kariss Sandhoff

Administrative Partner

Julie Propst

Instructor

Madeline Pratt

Madeline Pratt teaches some of the beginning and intermediate classes here at NCADA. She started as an assistant teacher to Miss Annie and Miss Janna and has loved teaching some of her own classes the last couple of years. Madeline has been dancing for 12 years at NCADA in various classes such as ballet, pointe, jazz, and lyrical. She has also been involved in Colorado Dance Theatre’s production of The Nutcracker. Madeline graduated from Frontier Academy and is now attending the University of Northern Colorado where she is studying psychology and visual art. She is thankful for the opportunity to teach at the same studio she grew up at and where she continues to pursue her love of dance.