Faculty

Katie Mulnix
Performing Arts Supervisor
Liz Leatherwood
PERFORMING ARTS CHOREOGRAPHER
Katrina Loncaric
INSTRUCTOR
Kelly Hunter
INSTRUCTOR
Courtney McClendon
INSTRUCTOR
Hope Burt
INSTRUCTOR
Chelsie Smith
INSTRUCTOR

Katie Mulnix

PERFORMING ARTS SUPERVISOR

Katie Mulnix danced professionally for The Georgia Ballet for ten years. She grew up in Rochester, NY where she trained with the Draper Center for Dance Education, Botsford School of Dance, and the Rochester City Ballet.  She moved to the Atlanta area after graduating Magna Cum Laude from The University of South Carolina with a dual degree in Ballet Performance and Choreography and Economics, and a minor in business.  With the USC Dance Company, she had to the opportunity to perform many classical and contemporary pieces.  With the Georgia Ballet, she performed in many productions including The Nutcracker, Carmen Suite, Giselle, Coppelia, Peter Pan, Sleepy Hollow, Swan Lake, Firebird, and Serenade to name a few. She has extensively trained in ballet, pointe, contemporary, jazz, lyrical, and ballroom throughout the country including with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Ballet Hispanico, Rochester City Ballet, Orlando Ballet, and the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts.  She loves teaching all the lovely dancers here in Roswell.

Roswell Dance Starz instructor

Liz Leatherwood

PERFORMING ARTS CHOREOGRAPHER

Liz attended Cobb County Center for Excellence in the Performing Arts at Pebblebrook High School as a Dance Major.  She has trained with Ann Avery of Atlanta Ballet, Peter Paulos of Augusta Ballet, the Late Great Tommy Sutton, Broadway’s Michael Blevins and Cobb County’s own Marcus Alfred and Annie Day.  Liz also attended University of West Georgia.  Throughout her career she has performed in various dance concerts and still performs at Roswell Performing Arts with the Adult Tap Class that she has taught for 5 years and The Dancers Backstage since 2018.  Her favorite part of working in the Performing Arts is when her students take all the hours of hard work and put it all together into an amazing performance

Katrina Loncaric

INSTRUCTOR

Katrina has been blessed with sharing her talents around the world.  Most notably, she performed in the Broadway production of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, where she danced in the Ensemble and also performed as the Understudy to the female lead, Ulla. She shared the stage with Tony Danza and David Hasselhoff in the Las Vegas production of The Producers.  She was a Feature Singer and Showgirl in the long running Las Vegas spectacular, Don Arden’s Jublilee!, and has traveled around the world as a Cabaret Vocalist with Azamara Club Cruises. Katrina holds a B.A. in Communication Studies from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and has studied and performed Improv and Sketch Comedy with The Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre, Second City, and The Groundlings in New York City, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.  In addition to teaching the future stars of tomorrow, she is a mother to a beautiful son.

Kelly Hunter

INSTRUCTOR

Born and raised in the Atlanta Metro area Kelly started her dance training at Rhythm Dance Center in Marietta, Ga.  She is a graduate of the dance program at Pebblebrook High School. Kelly majored in Jazz Performance dance at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. After her graduation Kelly accepted a job with Royal Caribbean International as a Production Dancer for three years. Kelly took a three year contract on the wonderful island of Bermuda where she taught ballet, pointe, modern, and jazz to students ages 4- adult. While living there Kelly had the honor to Choreograph for the Bermuda Music Festival where my students performed a Tribute to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with the Quincy Jones Orchestra. I am glad to back in the Atlanta metro area sharing my love for dance.

Courtney McClendon

INSTRUCTOR

Courtney McClendon is an Atlanta based dancer, teacher, and choreographer. She received her BFA in dance from Radford University where she produced, directed, and choreographed several research based dance performances.  During her career Courtney has had the opportunity to perform in international festivals, local dance festivals, corporate events, school educational shows, and formal dance concerts. She has performed works by Kyle Abraham, Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theatre, Danah Bella, Inessa Plekhanova, and Amy VanKirk.  Professionally, Courtney is currently in her 4th season dancing with Full Radius Dance. Where she has toured to places such as Miami and New York. She has also presented work at Up Close and Personal, an evening showcase event. Courtney teaches dance and acting at Roswell Performing Arts, and this year is her 3rd season as Assistant Director and Choreographer with the Roswell Youth Theatre. 

Roswell Dance Starz instructor

Courtney McClendon

INSTRUCTOR

Hope Burt was born in Detroit Michigan but raised in Southern California and Central Florida. She began dancing at the age of 10 and immediately discovered her passion! Hope quickly developed a love for all dance styles but through intensive training and hard work reached a high level of accomplishment in Contemporary, Ballet, Hip Hop, Jazz and Lyrical. She later added ballroom and heels to her repertoire.

Hope has won numerous awards and scholarships including a full scholarship to Dance Educators of America’s Ballet Seminar where she trained under nationally renowned ballet instructors. Her achievements include; Being the first African American to receive the dancer of the year at her childhood studio. Winning the Leap Contest and being featured on the front page of the competition website. Hope has performed annually as one of the featured soloist in the Nutcracker Ballet, Held at the Maxwell C. King Center. She has also gone on to perform at the Mercedes Benz Stadium for the “Beloved” benefit, The Kennedy Space Center, Morgan State University, Disneyland and toured around the country performing.

She is a passionate, Detailed, Lyrical, Artist. 

Her every step has to have an intention, a focus and energy flowing through it. Whether it’s dramatic or subtle her movement is driven by raw emotion that captures the true essence of the human experience. She uses her technical background, lines and musicality to communicate this work to the audience.

 In addition to performance, Hope is a choreographer/Instructor known throughout Atlanta for creating innovative and unique choreography. After teaching for over 10 years her love for all 160 of her students is still going strong helping them to reach their fullest potential.  

 Hope is currently a judging official for GHSA (Georgia High School Association) and is excited to help move the sport of Dance forward.

She is quickly become the one to watch with her ambition to become one of the most influential entrepreneurs in America.

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Chelsie Smith

INSTRUCTOR

Chelsie Smith is originally from Butler, PA. She grew up as a competitive dancer in tap and jazz for 8 years. In college, Chelsie was a member and co-captain of two different dance teams (jazz and hip hop). After college, she danced professionally for a D-League basketball team for 3 years. Chelsie has over 12 years of experience teaching a variety of dance, including acro, hip hop, jazz, ballet, tap, and lyrical, in dance studios in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.  Her favorite part of teaching dance is working on choreography, especially in acro, tap, and jazz.  During the day Chelsie works as a speech language pathologist, and she enjoys spending time with her growing family.