Artistic Director

Haiyan Wu, was born in Beijing, China. Wu graduated from The Beijing Dance Academy with honors in Ballet. She performed in Paris with the Le Jeune Ballet de France as a guest artist while she was in school. After her graduation, she joined The National Ballet of China where she performed leading roles with the company at many important international and domestic performances, including performing for the President of China. Her performances were seen on CCTV by over a billion people across China. Wu joined Miami City Ballet as a Principal Dancer in 2003 after she won the Gold Medal of the USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Mississippi in 2002. (The USA IBC was founded in 1978. It is one of the world’s top competitions for ballet. This competition is attended by dancers from all over the world to represent their country for bronze, silver, or gold medals in a variety of categories of ballet in an Olympic-style competition.) Wu is also the Gold Medal winner of The Shanghai International Ballet Competition in 2001. Wu was named one of the top 10 performers of Miami’s Adrienne Arsht Center in 2010. As a guest artist, Wu has performed all over the world including France, Russia, Denmark, Turkey, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Her repertoire includes principal roles in works by George Balanchine, Christopher Wheeldon, Jerome Robbins, Ben Stevenson, Christopher Stowell and Edward Villella, among others. Wu has performed the principle roles also in the full-length classics Romeo and JulietSwan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, Nutcracker, Don Quixote, La Corsaire and Coppelia.

In addition to her dancing experience, Wu has taught and coached in Beijing, Orlando, Clearwater, Long Beach and Hartford. She taught master classes for Long Beach Ballet , Ballet Northwest, Oregon Ballet Theatre School, and coached the Paquita at Hartford University. Wu specializing in teaching ballet, modern, contemporary, character dance, lyrical as well as Chinese classical and folk dance. With her extensive experience in dance performance, her professional training and her passion of teaching dance, Wu would love to guide her students to explore the artistic world and the beauty of all types of dances.



Yang_Zou_150px Ballet Instructor & Studio Manager

Yang Zou was born in Changsha, China. Mr. Zou began his ballet training at Guangzhou Art School and danced with Guangzhou Ballet for years. He danced for Miami City Ballet as a Principal Soloist, and joined Oregon Ballet Theater as a Principal Dancer in 2011. He has performed many important roles in classic Ballets as well as famous contemporary dances. He has also performed all over the world including Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Korea, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Australia and Peru.

As a guest artist, Mr. Zou performed principal roles for Miami Youth Ballet in 2010, The Gala USA International Ballet Competition in Jackson in 2008, Long Beach Ballet in 2008, Cincinnati Dance Festival in 2006 and 2008. Mr. Zou had performed the “Prince” in “The Sleeping Beauty” with Miami City Ballet for the Opening Night of Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts of Miami-Dade County in 2006.

Mr. Zou had gotten rewards in many important Ballet competitions including the Silver Medal winner of the 3rd Shanghai International Ballet Competition in 2004 and the Bronze Medal winner of the National Ballet Competition in China in 2003.

In addition to his dancing career, Mr. Zou has taught ballet in Beijing, Orlando, Clearwater, University of Hartford, Long Beach Ballet among other prestigious ballet companies and ballet schools. Mr. Zou is also the Studio Manager of HIDA.


Ballet, Tap, Hiphop, Lyrical, Contemporary, Jazz Instructor

Amanda Monte, was first put into dance at the age of 3 and started training with the San Pedro Ballet Company at the age of 8. Performing in ballets such as, The Nutcracker and Giselle before the age of 10. Growing up along the coast of California she first began competing and was advanced to the senior competing groups in tap, jazz and hip hop in Los Angeles and got the chance to perform at Disneyland starting at age 11. She auditioned for tap at Debbie Reynold’s dance studio and was asked by Debbie Reynolds to audition for the ballet as well. Lauridsen Ballet Company was the last solely ballet company she trained with before returning to her home studio in Fresno, California- The Dance Studio of Fresno. Alumni of this studio include, Gina Starbuck, Mia Michaels, John Stronks, Jason Glover (a competitor on So You Think You Can Dance) and others have continued on to dance for people like Justin Bieber on tour. Being taught by and dancing with dancers like these strengthened Amanda’s love for dance and after being introduced to the contemporary styles of Dee Caspary and Peter Chu, as well as the modern style of Martha Kelly-Fierro, she began competing in these styles with her team bringing in predominantly platinum awards. To help pay for dancing 40 hours a week, she started out as a teacher’s assistant for mini and junior ballet, tap and jazz classes. She competed with The Dance Studio of Fresno for 3 years, helping her team achieve the national ranking of fifth overall highest scoring studio. Now she hopes to teach students with a strong ballet foundation to become well-rounded and successful dancers so that they can turn dance into a career, as well as hoping to instill self-confidence and a true sense of personal identity since the teachers who helped her find those things within herself have made her a stronger and more dedicated person to this day.


Ballet, Jazz & Contemporary Instructor 

Jennah Pendleton 

F19D0F5E-9181-4302-BBFD-DC3518F65233After a lifetime of training and performing, I would find it an honor to pass along what I have learned to a new generation of dancers. I would like to provide them with the enrichment that dance gave my youth. In addition to providing excellent technical training, I want to create a healthy and safe environment for dancers to learn and develop their artistry.

Since I ended my professional ballet career, I have become very interested in contemporary and improvisational dance. My current goal for myself is to move forward in contemporary dance world, including developing my own choreographic voice. Although I am hoping to take my dance career in a new direction, ballet will always be an integral piece of who I am as a dancer. I will always have a deep love and appreciation for classical ballet, for its beauty and precision.  Though, now I do have great love for modern and contemporary dance and find it essential for ballet dancers to have to make them a well rounded dancer.

I trained in classical ballet for about fifteen years, studying under Salwa Rizkalla in the Vaganova method at Southland Ballet Academy in Fountain Valley, California. 9AD84DCB-9905-4A16-B3C0-80C87535662CThere I also received training in jazz, character, and contemporary dance. As a student, I participated in some small jazz competitions and YAGP. I later joined the studio company, Festival Ballet Theatre, where I had the opportunity to dance soloist roles in full length productions and new contemporary works. At both FBT and OBT I participated in many education outreach performances as well. Later on, when I was a member of the studio company, I had the opportunity to teach. I subbed classes and then took over a full day of one instructor’s classes when she was on maternity leave, so I had the chance to work with the same group of kids for a few months. I very much enjoyed this experience, and received a lot of positive feedback from the students’ parents as well as the other staff.

Although I have been doing some private instruction since I moved to Portland, I miss teaching children. I have been keeping my eye out for a positive, professional studio to work with, and I am very passionate about providing these students with high quality training.


Ballet, Jazz & Contemporary Instructor 

Jefferson DancersAlexa McKone began dancing at a very young age in Santa Barbara, California. She has studies in various styles such as Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Tap, Hip Hop,29A8B6A2-0252-4D9F-8A6F-644792BF42C2 African, and Aerial and Acrobatics. She moved to Portland, Oregon when she began dancing with The Jefferson Dancers in 2013. She has performed nationally and internationally as well as professionally with Pixie Dust Productions. She choreographed “Rippled” performed at the Jefferson Dancers Spring Concert in 2017. Alexa has received multiple scholarships to study dance; The Santa Barbara Dance Alliance Summer Scholarship, The Circus Project Summer Intensive Scholarship, American Dance Festival 6 Week School Scholarship, and The Jefferson High School Dance Department Scholarship. Alexa started teaching dance in high school at Hip Hop Soulsation Academy. She wants to continue to inspire young artists to strive to the best of their abilities.


 

Ballet Sub-teacher

Magwire Hammond has been dancing for 11 years and is eager to help contribute in training young aspiring dancers efficiently at Haiyan International Dance Academy. She hopes to continue her own artistic growth through teaching, while she simultaneously continues training and performing herself.