Essence Wilmington is fresh off the latest season (season 17) of the hit television show So You Think You Can Dance, placing 3rd. Essence, dancer and choreographer, started her training at the age of 9 taking mostly hip-hop courses. Growing up in a small town did not present many dance opportunities so Essence continued her dance journey being self taught online and by attending large hip-hop dance conventions in bigger cities around the country. The passion Essence had for hip-hop dance gave her the burning desire to start her own classes at the age of 12. She taught and choreographed for local dance students around her community and branded her dance team “Essence W. Dance”, that is still ran by Essence today. Essence helps introduce her dance students to the hip-hop dance world by taking them to national hip-hop conventions to take class from industry teachers and compete againt other great dancers around the country. She has and continues to work with many choreographers in the industry that have worked with huge music artist such as Chris Brown, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, and many more. Essence continues to make her mark on the dance world one step at a time.

Carolyn grew up as a competitive dancer and then Graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy NYC as a dance theatre major. From there, she have worked for National Tours including, Super Why Live (alpha pig), Sid the Science Kid Live (Sid/May/Puppet Captain), Fisher Price Live (Koby), and Sesame Street Live (Chamki, Zoe, Small & Medium Understudy ((imagine Grover and shorter )). Other credits include RWS, Stage Stars Productions, Dragonfly Productions, Glen Burtnik’s concerts, product modeling for Amazon, commercials, off off Broadway and more. Currently, she teaches competitive dancers in the Tri state area, judges dance competitions, and an F45 fitness coach.

Adriana Binaco is a dancer and choreographer who grew up dancing in the Charlotte, NC area. Her years of training and teaching have been through Dance Commotion Company in multiple genres. These genres include Pom, Acro, Modern technique, Ballet, Hip-Hop, Jazz and Contemporary. Throughout her time dancing, she’s received titles such as Star Talent Miss Senior Extreme and scholarships through companies such as Force Dance Tour. She has trained and worked side by side with choreographers such as Chase Hudson, Aaron Atkins, Joe Nickel, and many more. She has  choreographed and performed in numbers for many public performances, such as the 2022 Disney Showcase. She has lead her competition team through many victories and overall placements with her unique choreography. She continues to teach master classes across the area and pursue her passion in creating and inspiring. Her goal is to help dancers explore their movement quality and find their expressionism and passion through dance. 

Kait Culler, Kait began her love for dance at two years old at the Southern Strutt in Irmo, SC. She competed and performed with them for 15 years and trained in Jazz, Hip-Hop, Ballet, and Lyrical. Kait danced with the Dutch Fork Dance Company for all four years of high school, studying Modern, Contemporary, and Safety-Release. Kait graduated from Dutch Fork High School in 2014 with NHSDA. At Columbia College (SC), Kait focused on Dance and History where she studied Somatic and Modern technique with the CC Dance Company and served as the Historian of the dance company in 2019. REFERENCES Terrance Henderson (Director at Southeastern School of Ballet)