Aspire Dance Academy
Founded in August 2012 by owner, Lauren Gibson, we are conveniently located right outside of Richmond, in Manakin-Sabot. We're only 7 minutes from Short Pump Town Center and directly across from the Food Lion shopping center.
Our studios offer a marley covered, suspended wooden floor in Stuido I and wood sprung floor in Studio II, therefore providing our dancers with a safe dancing environment. We use floor to ceiling mirrors to help students see and make corrections. Our lobbies include a monitor into the studio, allowing parents to easily observe their dancer's entire class, if they choose.
Aspire Instructors
Lauren Gibson
Owner / Director / Instructor
Dance became part of Lauren's life at the young age of 5 and has remained a love ever since. She graduated from East Carolina University where she minored in Dance, training with Joseph Carow, Cindi Mancini, and Galina Panova. Most recently, Lauren has performed as a principal dancer with a local ballet company.
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Throughout her career, Lauren has won numerous awards for performance and choreography through many national competitions. She has performed at the French Embassy in Washington, DC and has been featured in lead roles to include The Nutcracker, Cinderella, and original choreography. During her college years Lauren had the opportunity to train with the Joffrey Ballet.
With a desire to share her talents and love of the art with an underserved community, Lauren created, developed, and implemented a Free Dance Program for underprivileged middle school students in Washington, NC. There she volunteered her time to instruct students in ballet, jazz, tap and hip-hop where she had over 40 students per class. She then served as an instructor at a local dance studio in Greenville, NC.
Lauren believes every dancer should always aspire to be more! In September 2013, Lauren completed her ISCA Mat Pilates certification in order to offer additional cross training to her dancers. Working to continue her own dance education, Lauren attended the Dance Teacher Summit in 2014 and 2015 where she had the privilege to train with Luigi, Twyla Tharp, Finis Jhung, Bob Rizzo, Mandy Moore, Mia Michaels, and Jenifer Ringer among many other renowned teachers. In 2016 and 2017, Lauren trained with Finis Jhung at his Ballet Technique for Teachers training in order to continue her growth in teaching styles as an instructor. In 2018 and 2019, Lauren traveled to Scottsdale, AZ and Atlantic City, NY respectively to attend the Dance Teacher Life Conference to continue her quest for education.
Throughout her life, Lauren has aspired to share her love and knowledge of dance with others. She is excited about the opportunity to do this through the Aspire Dance Academy dance studio and looks forward to helping others achieve their dreams.
Instructor
Ballet, Jazz, Lyrical
Amelia Virtue
Born in Morgantown, West Virginia, Amelia Virtue began her dance training at Kat and Company Dance Studio under direction of Katreena Snyder and Virtue’s mom, Wendy Virtue as her ballet teacher. In addition to Kat and Company, she began additional training at Morgantown Dance Studio and Pittsburgh Youth Ballet. She attended Summer Intensives at Virginia School of the Arts in 2008, American Ballet Theatre (NYC) in 2009 and 2010, Cincinnati Ballet in 2011 and 2012, Ellison Ballet (NYC) in 2011, Alonzo King LINES Ballet in 2013, Nashville Ballet in 2014, and Kansas City Ballet in 2015.
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At the 2011 Youth American Grand Prix she was invited to Ellison Ballet’s Professional Training Program in New York City, New York under the direction of Edward Ellison where she attended the year-round program. She attended Cincinnati Ballet’s year-round training program in 2012 to 2014 where she performed with the professional company as a corps de ballet member in ballets such as The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Romeo and Juliet.
Virtue joined Nashville Ballet’s Trainee Program in 2014. Her repertoire with Nashville Ballet included excerpts from Le Corsaire, Peter Pan, and The Nutcracker. In 2016, Virtue began teaching for Kansas City Ballet in Kansas City, Missouri.
Virtue taught ages 3-18+ and led workshops that traveled to different parts of the metro area. Her favorite workshop was The SleepingBeauty Dance-A-Story where Kansas City Ballet provided opportunities for very young children to experience classic stories in a unique way.
Virtue came to Richmond, Virginia in 2018 where she attends Virginia Commonwealth University with a major in the Dance and Choreography Department. Virtue had the opportunity of performing in VCUarts Dance NOW 2022 concert where she danced a duet with a robot, choreographed by Dr. Kate Sicchio (Assistant Professor Dance and Media Technologies) and Alicia Olivo (VCU Arts and Engineering Alum). The performance, titled “Amelia and the Machine” is a collaborative project between Dr. Patrick Martin (VCU Engineering) and Dr. Kate Sicchio (VCU Arts). Amelia is continuing as a research assistant with VCU in a series of investigations of creative human-robot teams led by Dr. Sicchio and Dr. Martin.
In addition to her VCUarts NOW performance, she appeared in a dance film titled, “Soledad” choreographed and directed by Eric Rivera, Associate Professor of VCU’s Department of Dance and Choreography.
Amelia is extremely grateful to be a part of the Aspire Dance Academy staff and to teach all the wonderful students!
Instructor
Ballet, Pointe, Lyrical
Arianna Lawson
Arianna Lawson started dancing at the age 4, training with Maine State Ballet, Portland School of Ballet and Bossov Ballet in Maine, before furthering her training at The Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, Russia and at the Houston Ballet Academy Houston Texas.
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At 18 years old, Arianna was offered a contract dancing with the Oklahoma City Ballet, where she danced for 6 years, performing works by internationally acclaimed choreographers such as George Balanchine, Jiří Kylián, Nacho Duato, Stanton Welch, Agnes De Mille, Helen Pickett, Ma Cong, Anthony Tudor, and Twyla Tharp.
Arianna then joined the Dayton Ballet in Ohio, where she performed Principal roles such as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, the Lilac Fairy in Sleeping Beauty and in works by Gerald Arpino, Mariana Oliveira and Septime Webre.
When not in the studio, Arianna enjoys doing Pilates/Yoga, cooking, and spending time with her fiancé, Joe (who is a dancer with the Richmond Ballet) and their three cats.
Darian Desrocher
Instructor
Tap, Hip Hop
Darian has been dancing since she was 3 years old and is formally trained in ballet, pointe, jazz, tap, contemporary, musical theater, hip hop, and modern dance. Darian grew up in Chester Springs, PA and attended Lionville School of Dance (LSOD) under Jeanene Jarvie and her husband Sean Murphy, both formerly of the Washington Ballet. For 12 years she was on the school’s competitive dance team and has performed in numerous competitions, Hershey Park and Disney World! In her senior year she was chosen to perform a special opening number with other elite dancers at the Imagine Dance Challenge Nationals.
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Darian also has a love for ballet and performed in LSOD’s production of The Nutcracker each year, dancing roles such as Marzipan soloist, Toy Soldier and The Sugarplum Fairy. She has also spent three summers attending the Rockette Summer Intensive in New York City!
After high school, Darian attended James Madison University where she graduated with B.A. in Dance Performance and Choreography in May of 2023. While in college, she performed as part of the JMU Contemporary Dance ensemble at the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts. She was also on the Madison Dance Team all four years where she had the opportunity to choreograph and serve on their Executive Board.
Darian began student assisting at her studio the age of 12, and has had many opportunities to teach dance during college. In addition to beginning her teaching career with Aspire, Darian currently works for Showstopper Dance Competition. She is super excited to share her love for tap with her students and help them learn and grow as dancers!
Julianne Russell
Instructor
Jazz, Ballet
Julianne Russell grew up dancing in Mechanicsville, VA. In 2018 she received her BFA in Dance from George Mason University where she performed works by Alejandro Cerrudo, Yin Yue, Ivan Perez, and more.
After graduating, Julianne moved to New York City. There she performed with Amirov Dance Theater, marked dance project, Roschman Dance, as well as various independent choreographers. In 2019 she was honored to be the recipient of the Dance Italia Summer Scholarship to spend three weeks in Lucca, Italy studying dance. Most recently, she received a grant to create a new work from Alumni Artist Support Initiative at George Mason University.
Julianne is excited to be back in Virginia with the Aspire Dance Academy family!
Erica Hidalgo-Monroy
Instructor
Tap
Erica started dancing at the age of 3 and trained extensively in tap and jazz with additional training in ballet and lyrical. In college, while earning her BA, she trained and performed with the Lynchburg College Dance Company. She choreographed a variety of tap numbers for their dance concerts and performed in many student-choreographed projects in a range of dance styles.
After graduating college, Erica continued her formal dance training in Northern Virginia, focusing primarily on tap, and performing with the Step Aside Tap Company. She routinely participates in tap festivals throughout the US and has been fortunate to take master classes with such highly-regarded tappers as Diane Walker, Michelle Dorrance and Barbara Duffy.
Erica is very excited at the opportunity to share her knowledge and love of tap with students at Aspire Dance Academy.
Juli Garrett
Instructor
Hip Hop, Jazz
Juli Garrett has studied all styles of dance for over 30 years. She began her training in her hometown, Louisa County, at the age of 9 years old. She continued her training traveling with Hoctor's Dance Caravan at age 17. She received a BFA degree from George Mason University where she also was apart of the Masonettes Dance Team. She had the pleasure of working for Jessica Morgan's School of Dance for 18 years. She coaches and choreographs for two dance teams, JRHS "Rapid Motion" and RMS "Raiderettes". She enjoys teaching in RVA and sharing her love of dance!
Sabrina Vaz
Instructor
Choreography
Ms Vaz relocated to Richmond from Massachusetts. She has been teaching Classical Ballet and Dance for over thirty years. After attending Laban Centre in London, England and having a dance career which brought her throughout Europe and the States, she opened her own studio which she ran for 21 years.
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Sabrina specializes in teaching the Vaganova teaching method. After studying with the acclaimed professors of dance including Prof. Ludmilla Kolenchenko (Bolshoi Academy), Prof. Ludmilla Kovalenko (Bolshoi Academy), Prof. Ludmilla Safronova (Vaonova Academy), Prof. Natalya Revich (Bolshoi Academy), Prof. Vladilen Semenov (Russia’s Danseur Noble & former director of Kirov Ballet), Prof. Anastasia Ovdienko (Bolshoi Academy), Anton Boystov (Kirov Ballet), Ekaterina Shchelkanova (Kirov Ballet & ABT), Ms Vaz-Barros completed full certification of Levels 1-8 with the famed Bolshoi Ballet Academy of Moscow, Russia.
Sabrina has choreographed several full length ballets including the Nutcracker. In addition to ballet she also teachers lyrical, musical theater, and jazz in all levels and beginning to elementary tap levels. She has choreographed competition routines for her students and teams that have received Gold and Platinum awards. She is also certified in both Traditional Pilates and Gyrotonic. She loves to share her joy of movement and her passion for ballet with all her students. Sabrina is delighted to have the opportunity to be part of the Aspire family!