Instructors

Sasha Chudacoff  is a dance educator, choreographer, performer, and Creative collaborator extraordinaire. She has spent her life training in diverse dance/movement disciplines and approaches. Regardless of training, she believes everyone is a dancer. Beyond the physical, dance can be a beautiful tool for emotional and creative expression

Her environmental dance films, MINE (2018), Life: Plastic Wrapped (2020), and Fragments of a Quarantine Dream(2020) have screened at  film festivals across the U.S. and Canada. She danced professionally with Axis Dance Company (Oakland, CA), SoulForce (San Francisco, CA), Syzygy Butoh (Boulder), David Dorfman Dance (Denver), Alegria Samba Dance Company (Berkeley) and collaborated with 20 Moons Dance Theater.

She creates a safe, fun learning environment and non- intimidating atmosphere for all ages and backgrounds. As a community based, multidisciplinary dance artist, Sasha finds inspiration in imagery, somatic practices, spirit of place and the transmission of movement from body to body through time. She loves dancing on the ground and in the air! She is a certified aerial arts teacher with Paper Doll Militia/Born to Fly^TM

, certified in Brain-Compatible Dance Education/ Brain Dance^TM, and holds over 15yrs of teaching experience (early childhood through adults).  She finds joy and ongoing study in dance genres such as Contemporary, Hip Hop, West African Dance and Drum, Jazz, Aerial Dance, Butoh, Street Dance, “Anatomically Safe” Ballet and Improvisation.  Integrating dance practices for all bodies has been a focus within her career in dance education and professional performance.

Sasha is a professional member of ACE, American Circus Educators and is committed to safety-specific industry standards and best practices in aerial arts according to ACE guidelines. Wild Hare Dance is currently becoming a recognized program of the ACE’s Circus Arts Safety Network; a National organization that publicly recognizes aerial arts organizations and spaces that follow safety-specific industry standards and best practices.

From a young age Sophia was drawn to dance as an art form and vehicle for self expression. Thankfully, her ballet instructor, Karyl Noily, encouraged imaginative play. She attributes the wisdom of her dance teachers in her early years to her continued study of dance, eventually earning a BA in Religion and a Minor in Thematic Arts with a focus on choreography from Colorado College.

She danced professionally in San Francisco for eight years, exposing her to the plethora of ways dances are created and performed. She has had the pleasure of performing in parks, on trolley’s, in the street, on old mining sites AND at ODC Theater (SF), Yerba Buena Gardens (SF), The Academy of Sciences (SF), San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Dance Mission Theater (SF), The Garage (SF), The Finnish Brotherhood Hall (Berkeley), The Teatro Miguel Santana (Bahia Brazil), Crested Butte Center for the Arts, in dances for film with cameos in music videos for the Tune-Yards and Jim James.

Sophia aims to nurture curiosity and sensitize dancers to an innate state of health through mind-body connectivity. Since 2006 she has been a dance educator in a variety of settings from public school arts enrichment programs (Kids in Motion, Colorado Springs) to Circus Arts Camps (8th Street Studios, Berkeley) to recreational programs (Crested Butte School of Dance). Her teaching is influenced by The Axis Syllabus, a repository of bio-mechanical and kinetic information, which she applies across disciplines from outdoor sports to dance. In addition, her interest in social-emotional education sparked a lifelong relationship with Toolbox Project®. She has been fortunate enough to study with intelligent teachers from around the globe who continue to feed her curiosity for human movement including Fara Tolno, Frey Faust, Francesca Pedulla, Kira Kirsch, Antoine Ragot, Kelly Keenan, Baris Mihci, Sara Shelton Mann, Kathleen Hermesdorf, Benoit Lechambre, the incredible team at AXIS Dance Company, Diego Pinon, Natsu Nakajima, Rosangela Silvestre, Mikey Mestas, Etienne Tolno, Mami Sayon Camara, Kaylee Cahoon, Jean Sullivan, Jennifer Depalo Peterson and Mark Collins. 

Originally from Littleton, Colorado, Carrie Demos received her B.A. in Dance from Colorado State University and is a graduate of The Foundations of Dance Education, Dance Education Laboratory at the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center and The Kane School of Core Integration (Comprehensive Pilates Mat Certification) in New York. A Brooklyn/New York City based Dance Educator for the past 15 years, Carrie has been on faculty with the 92nd St Y Harkness Dance Center, Steffi Nossen School of Dance and currently serves on faculty with Brooklyn Ballet and Peridance Dance Center/The School at Peridance.

As a passionate Early Childhood Dance Educator, Carrie is the Dance Educator/Specialist for The Garden

House School in New York and has been honored to work with American Ballet Theatre’s Department of Education in collaboration with The Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School to teach and grow their two-year-old parent and child engagement program, ABTots. Carrie is currently honored to serve as a Teaching Artist for New York City Ballet Education and American Ballet Theatre Education, collaborating and dancing with New York City Public School students and educators and has worked with the New York City Department of Education to further advance dance education for children and train educators by serving as a Co-Facilitator for the department’s Universal Pre-Kindergarten Teacher Training.

Mami Sayon Camara is an accomplished West African Dancer from Guinea and is an integral part of the nonprofit Kissidugu Foundation/ Kissidugu Performance Ensemble.  She has been a professional artist since age ten- working  to help support her family. In Guinea, she was part of several professional dance companies, with which she trained, performed and toured for ceremonies, celebrations and other special occasions. Since coming to the U.S. in July, 2021, she has been dancing,  teaching and performing all over Colorado and locally.  She is an extraordinary teacher and performer.

Her teaching proceeds directly support the Kissidugu Speciality School of Music, Dance and Education in Conakry Guinea. Wild Hare Dance is extremely honored to have her here in the community sharing her culture, knowledge, and passion for West African Dance and Music. Gunnison Valley has had a long time learning relationship with Kissidugu and Gabriel Fara Tolno, the founder and executive director of the organization.

Angela has studied African dance intensively for twenty years. She has gone to numerous renown conferences around the nation to learn traditions from Master instructors originating from Guinea, Mali, Zimbabwe, Congo, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Haiti and Ghana. She studied extensively in Guinea, West Africa with the incredible Youssouf Koumbassa, as well as the griot Ngom family in Senegal. She was also a premier performer and member of the Kissidugu West African Percussion and Dance Ensemble based out of Boulder, CO for eight years. She studied and worked with Master Fara Tolno during this time as well as Djeneba Sako and Onye Ozuzu. Training under the tutelage of Fara, she learned in depth the dance, culture and rhythms of Guinea; learning choreography from the famous Les Merveilles ballet of Guinea.

Angela has taken a wide variety of classes and her personal love of dance and combines this with her extensive African Dance training to bring a fun fusion of movement that is accessible and engaging for all levels of dancers. She co-founded the Kissidugu Foundation and has her B.S. and M.S. in Exercise Sport Science. She believes that Movement is Life! She has been working in various forms of education for 25 years. Currently she is working to organize and promote cultural arts movement and music programs, as well as health and wellness programs, for all ages and abilitiesin the Gunnison Valley.