Teachers

DanceSport Teachers

Beginner DS Chief & Head Teacher
Kenny Gallanosa

Kenny Gallanosa is one of the head teachers for the new incoming rookies for the 2011-2012 year. He is excited for all the new dancers to come join the team because competitive ballroom dance is something that the world needs to experience and witness for themselves. He been on the team since his freshman year, starting out with almost no previous experience in dance. Even though he was never formally trained, he has always enjoyed dancing with friends and ballroom has been a way to express himself through dance. He’s a third year Environmental Economics Major with a double Minor in Education and City & Regional Planning. Kenny’s favorite dance is Rumba, but he also enjoys a good Samba from time to time. He can’t wait for the year to begin and to start teaching all the new future ballroom dancers here at Cal.

 

Beginner DS Latin Teacher
Lana Vasiljevic

Lana Vasiljevic is a pre-med, Dance/Performance Studies and Psychology double major in her senior year at Cal. She teaches Beginner DS Latin. She has been dancing for the past 17 years and has done a variety of styles prior to joining UCB Ballroom Team. This is her 4th year with the ballroom team, and she could not be more excited to compete and teach a new batch of newbies how to shake it. Lana’s favorite part of dancing is being challenged with new steps and routines- ballroom definitely accomplishes that. She finds it really fun to learn how to dance with another person, and learn how to actually move as a whole. The best part of teaching for Lana is seeing certain concepts finally click in people’s heads, and then watching them master those things- it’s a pretty exciting moment, and she always feel very accomplished. Her favorite dance would have to be Samba- it has the best music, but is also the hardest to look good doing.

Beginner DS Standard Teacher
Rachel Kao

Rachel has danced on the team for two years. Prior to ballroom she ice-skated competitively for ten years and did other forms of dance such as ballet, Chinese ribbon dancing and hip hop. She loves to dance because it’s an expression of art. Rachel enjoys teaching because she love watching students improve and develop as both individuals and dancers. She is majoring in Architecture and minoring in Sustainable Design and Structural Engineering.

Intermediate DS Chief & Head Teacher
Danae Sterental

Danae has been dancing with the team for four years and she loves the learning process that occurs when people dance. She feels that watching those around her improve is the most inspirational part of dance. She cannot wait to work with all the intermediate dancers on the team and hopefully bring their dancing to new levels.

Intermediate DS Teacher
Alex Hanganu

Alex has been with UCBD since 2008, and started with no experience in dancing. He is currently a Senior in Integrative Biology and enjoys dancing Tango and Samba. He looks forward to teaching the incoming intermediate class and making Ballroom dancing as fun and rewarding for them as it was for him.

 

 

Social Teachers

Social Head Teacher
Caitlyn Keith

Caitlyn has been dancing for as long as she can remember, and in that time she has at least experimented with all sorts of stlyes: ballet, modern, tap, jazz, break dancing, interpretive dance, and many more. However, for her,  the dances that really stuck and that she chose to pursue were couples dances. Caitlyn recently switched to competitive ballroom dancing, however her heart remains in social dancing. She has been social dancing for the past 13 years, and is never happier than when she is one the dance floor.  And in her 8 years of teaching social ballroom, she has learned one valuable lesson: the more fun it is to learn a dance, the more fun it is to dance it in the future. Caitlyn strives to make each class enjoyable for the students as well as her fellow teachers. Her best dances include East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing and Salsa.

Social Head Teacher
Peter Srethabhakti

Peter is a third year undergraduate EECS student. He joined UCBD in his sophomore year in Fall 2010 with no dance experience. In his time since then, he has learned a myriad of dances: first picking up the International dances taught on the team, to the American style dances taught by the team’s social training program, as well as some Night club style dances that he has picked up on his own free time for his own enjoyment. Although he has fun dancing competitively with UCBD, he likes going out to dance parties at studios and social dancing more. He enjoys teaching dance to anyone who has the interest and desire to learn, and he is especially happy to be able to teach the social classes to help spread his love for social dancing.  His favorite dance is West Coast Swing and is currently trying to promote that dance in the Berkeley area.

 

Social Head Teacher
Francine Foo

Francine is a graduate student in Biophysics at UCB. Her background is in musical theater, but she decided to try out ballroom during her time here. She joined UCBD in 2010, and has been teaching social classes as well as competing in ballroom competitions across the USA since then. After dabbling in several dance styles, her personal favorites are rumba, samba and bachata. Her future goals are to learn bollywood and lyrical hip hop. She believes dance is the artistic manifestation of the body’s emotional responses to music, and is excited to share the joys of dance with anybody who has the interest, passion and determination to learn.

Social Head Teacher
Kyle Lian

As a current second year studying EECS, Kyle began his experience with dancing with Swing two years prior to coming to Berkeley. Seeking to broaden dancing skill, he joined UCBD in his freshman year. Though a fair International dancer, Kyle has been furthering his social dancing alongside his competitive dancing and East Coast Swing remains his favorite style. He believes that dancing is something to be enjoyed and to have fun with and openly welcomes all who dance for this reason. Dancing goals for the future include furthering West Coast Swing, learning break-dancing, and staying awesome.