Rachel Coad
Rachael Coad began her dance training at a young age under Nancy Sample in her hometown: Leesburg, Virginia. She then went on to continue training and competing at competitions all across Virginia with The Dance Academy of Loudon, under Elizabeth Rotsch. During her high school years Rachael trained at the Virginia School of the Arts (a pre-professional boarding arts high school) under Petrus Bosman, Martha Faesi, and Lisa Thomas. While at VSA, she worked with many guest choreographers such as Kathy Brenner, Jennifer Medina, and Keelan Whitmore. She has also attended various summer programs, including Ballet Austin, Ballet Magnificat!, and Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet on partial scholarship. She most recently received her BFA in Ballet and Modern Dance from Texas Christian University (May 2011), where she was a TCU Nordan Fine Arts Scholarship holder. While at TCU, she performed in many wonderful works by choreographers including Li-Chou Cheng, Elizabeth Gillaspy, Loretta Livingston, Susan Douglas Roberts, and Kanji Segawa. Rachael also has a passion for reaching youth through dance and was blessed to spend the summer of 2008 serving as an intern at Moving In the Spirit, a youth development dance program for children and teens in Atlanta, Georgia. The highlight of Rachael’s performance career thus far was having the opportunity to perform Jessica Lang’s Confessions in the American College Dance Festival Association National Gala at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. in May of 2010. Rachael absolutely loves dancing and choreographing because it makes her feel alive and she feels it is her most natural form of worship unto the Lord. This year she is so excited to continue performing as she starts her first season dancing professionally with Epiphany DanceArts (Plano, TX). She is also very thankful for the opportunity to continue to pursue her love of teaching dance at Studio A as she joins the Staff this year!
