About Me (2-14-11)

My name is Janel and I am a 21 years old. I was born in Massachusetts and I moved to Racine when I was three. From the age of three my mom enrolled me in dance. My mom knew the owners of the dance studio that I danced at. I began in ballet as all little ones do and moved to jazz and tap as I got older. I also got into a bit of African at my studio as well as doing competition dance. When I was just getting into middle school my teacher decided to teach elsewhere and she was a great technical teacher. After she left I started to teach at the studio, the younger competition groups and the poms classes. I also taught people the same age as me but also as little as 3 years old throughout the years. As I went onto high school, I still taught at the studio but I also did poms in high school. I felt that this was the time that I lost much of my technique from my previous training because my poms team was not the most technical group. Then when I was going to start college I did not know what I wanted to do. I found out that UWM has a dance dept. and I decided to audition and got into the program. I planned on going through the dance program and getting another degree and then I wasn't too sure about because I loved the program so much. Now I plan on getting my dance degree, getting my somatics minor, and taking the classes I need to go to school for physical therapy as a graduate student. Right now I currently am not teaching but I have worked in retail for about 5 years, 2.5 at Linens-N-Things (before they closed), and 2.5 at Best Buy. Best Buy has affected my life in dance by the interest I have in technology and how it relates with dance. What I currently value in dance is the movement itself. The study of the body and making sure that it is moving healthy and in a beneficial way and not something that hurts the body. This is partly why my interest in somatics and physical therapy. I hope be able to help movers move healthy.