Ayley began dancing at age 11, with a focus on modern and contemporary. In 2002, she performed as a dancer in the Olympics Opening and Closing ceremonies. By age 14, she had begun choreographing and teaching professionally, continuing to study ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary, and hip hop under multiple instructors in the Salt Lake area. In high school, she began training under Ririe Woodbury’s Step Up program and began traveling to study from renowned contemporary choreographers across the country. She was offered a scholarship to study Modern dance at the University of Utah, where she continued her education. She has choreographed numerous award-winning pieces for many local high schools, studios, and professional companies, and continues to travel to train in LA and NYC several times per year to keep her own movement vocabulary current. She spends the majority of her time teaching, working for her videography company, improvising at home, and trying to keep up with her 6-year-old twin boys.
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Working from home meant we could vary snack and coffee breaks, change our desks or view, goof off, drink on the job, even spend the day in pajamas
Ella was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and has been dancing since she was 11 years old. She has trained in multiple different styles of dance including ballet, jazz, contemporary, lyrical, hip hop, tap and more. She has trained with amazing instructors and choreographers that have inspired her to also teach and choreograph. Ella loves to see her visions come to life. She has been awarded multiple scholarships and multiple choreography awards for solos, duos and group routines. During highschool, Ella continued to train at our very own studio, Danceology, and was part of the Corner Canyon Dance Team. She held two leadership positions as a Choreographer and an Officer. She was awarded Sterling Scholar for Dance and Graduated with an Advanced Diploma. Ella has won collegiate scholarships in dance including 2, $20,000 scholarships to AMDA and Full Tuition to SUU. She decided to stay in her roots and is currently studying at Utah Valley University to get her Bachelors of Science in Dance Education. Ella is a Former member of the Utah Valley Dance Team and helped them win 2 National Titles in Pom and Jazz. Ella is currently the Assistant Coach at Corner Canyon High School for the Dance Team and has decided to focus her time on teaching dancers and helping them reach their goals. Ella has fallen in love with teaching and she hopes to inspire dancers like her instructors have inspired her.
Elena Gimenez was born and raised in Madison, Alabama where she started dance at the age of three. She trained extensively in all styles and danced competitively for the majority of her life. Elena then went on to receive her BFA in Contemporary Dance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA). There, she performed works by Aszure Barton, Robert Battle, José Limón, Merce Cunningham, Larry Keigwin, and Yin Yue, among others. She has attended summer intensives with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Northwest Dance Project, the Limón Company at Perry-Mansfield, and The Cambrians. In these programs, she worked closely alongside people such as Dante Puleio, Ihsan Rustem, and FLOCK. Elena also has a passion for musical theatre, commercial dance, and choreography, winning numerous awards for her choreography of musicals and competitive pieces. She was a teacher at The Dance Company, Inc. in Alabama for over five years before moving to Utah. This is Elena’s first year as a member of the Contemporary Dance company, SALT2.
