Alexandra Shadle
Alexandra founded the International Dance Arts Collective in 2021 with the dream of spreading peace through dance, and giving children in her community the unique opportunity to learn about the world through cultural and historical dance and music.
Alexandra began dancing at age two when her mother put her in a ballet class and she never looked back. She grew up studying ballet, tap and jazz with Barbara Crockett, Allyson Deane, and Ron Cisneros. She performed for 11 years with Galena Street East under the direction of Jeri and Richard Clinger. For a decade she regularly performed at local festivals and civic events including the Governor’s Mansion, the Sacramento Railfair, the Christmas Tree Lighting. She toured internationally in Germany, Austria, Ireland, Scotland, and Czech Republic. It was during her time in Galena Street East that Alexandra first experienced the joy of learning and performing cultural dance when she had the opportunity to learn dances from around the world including Hawaii, Scotland, and Ireland.
Alexandra graduated from Brigham Young University where she toured locally and internationally with the Brigham Young International Folk Dance Ensemble. As a student, she taught World Dance at BYU. During her college career, she studied many world/ethnic dance styles including Indian, Spanish, Irish and Ukrainian, as well as ballet, tap, jazz, and clogging. She also studied both American and International Ballroom styles. After college, she worked as the Head of the Dance Department at San Roque School in Santa Barbara where she created a multi-genre dance curriculum for preschool through eighth graders and directed multiple school-wide music and dance performances. In Santa Barbara, she trained and taught at the Santa Barbara Dance Center. She performed and choreographed multiple pieces in BASSH with the Santa Barbara Dance Alliance.
After moving back to the Greater Sacramento Area, Alexandra continued to teach and choreograph with youth performing companies such as Galena Street East and Take Note Troupe, as well as in various capacities in the community. She recently piloted a Cultural Dance Workshop Program at Sierra Elementary School in the VAPA program giving hundreds of children the opportunity to learn cultural dance at school. Alexandra believes that the most important aspect of dance is how it builds connection. She loves seeing her students grow in love for each other, for other cultures, and for the people they serve through performing.
Alexandra also loves being a student of dance and yoga and takes class every chance she gets. When she’s not dancing, Alexandra can be found soaking up life’s most precious moments with her husband, Ben, and their five children.
Olivia Yasmine
Olivia comes from a long family tradition of griots (Djeli). Her mother is a Griot and poet from Trinidad and her grandmother was a High priestess of Shango, an African religion in the Caribbean following the Yoruba tradition. Olivia absorbed the music and stories of her mother and as a child learned to play the piano and conga but seriously studied dancing at the age of nine. After winning a gold medal in the first Olympic hip hop competitions, she devoted herself to developing a strong background in classical ballet, jazz and Dunham technique which she studied at the Ruth Rosenberg Dance School. Her African dance and music training began in Sacramento under Senegalese and Congolese masters and was enhanced on subsequent trips to Guinea and Cote d’lvoire. She has done research in Trinidad and Jamaica, Mexico, and Costa Rico, to study the music and dances of the Diaspora.
Olivia Yasmin is currently the Artistic Director at Fenix Drum and Dance Company which specializes in African and Diasporic music and dance. Working as instructor and choreographer with IDAC, she shares in the mission to foster peace, love and appreciation of all peoples and cultures within our local communities through exposure, education, and performance opportunities for children and youth in world, cultural, and historical dance and music.
Olivia is passionate about making drumming, music and dance approachable for anybody and everybody!
Staci Johnson
Staci began dancing at age 9. She fell in love with clogging and Folk Dance while attending BYU. Her favorite dance experience was dancing with the BYU International Folk Dance Spring Performing Arts Company where she performed many international styles including Ukrainian, Mexican, and Samoan.
She graduated from BYU with a degree in Elementary Education and has taught in public schools, at a local learning center for homeschool students, as a Homeschool Parent Educator, and here at IDAC.
Staci is a mom of 5, the youngest of whom is a dancer with IDAC. In addition to being a dance mom, theater mom, soccer mom, etc… Staci enjoys playing the piano, going for walks, spending time talking and laughing with friends and family, playing games, and listening to the waves crash at the beach. Some of her favorites are the color purple, mint chip ice cream, and dark chocolate.
We love having Staci on our IDAC NorCal team, and we are grateful for her endless service on our IDAC Board of Directors as well.
Heather Robinson
Hi, I’m Heather! I grew up in the mountains of Colorado and as a young child I was in ballet, tap, and Jazz. In high school I was head captain of a Colorguard/Winterguard team for 3 years, directing and choreographing the routines we performed in weekly competitions. I received my associate in dance at Ricks College, now known as BYU Idaho. While there I was introduced to clogging and instantly fell in love with it! I performed and competed with the Girls Clogging team. After graduating I taught clogging in Modesto California for a summer. I received my bachelors in Human Development and Family Science from the University of Utah. When my oldest daughter was 6 years old, I started teaching her clogging and word got out! I opened my home garage in Rocklin to students ages 4-17 years old and taught for almost 8 years. My loving husband of 24 years has supported me through all my fun hobbies and we have 5 awesome kids. My youngest will be learning clogging this year at IDAC and we’re so happy to be part of this community.
Heidi McClintock
Heidi began ballroom dancing in 5th grade at cotillion! In Jr. High she joined a youth ballroom dance team in Southern California. They performed all around her community and went to BYU ballroom dance camp every summer. In high school she started competing and teaching cotillion with her mentor.
Heidi was so excited to join the ballroom dance team at BYU. Throughout college she danced with the back-up tour and tour teams. She graduated from BYU with a B.S. in Dietetics and a minor in Dance.
Since college she has worked in hospitals, long term care facilities and in the community as a Registered Dietitian. She currently works for Medtronic and teaches diabetic patients how to use insulin pumps. Over the years she has taught dance to all ages at all different facilities and events. Sharing her love of dance and music has brought so much joy to her life.
Heidi is a mom of 3 kids and all 3 of her kids have performed with IDAC through dance or singing. She is thankful for all the opportunities IDAC has offered her children.
Anastasia Krzymowski
Anna began formally taking creative dance and karate at the age of 8, eventually joining a tumbling gym and ballet studio in rural Roosevelt, Utah until adolescence. She most enjoyed training, performing and competing in power tumbling and ballet from the age of 12 to 17. In high school, however, she also joined an MDT group, American Rhythm, where she had the opportunity to go on local and national tours to Idaho, Missouri, and Utah. On this team she trained in a variety of different dance styles including American clogging, Charleston/Lindy hop, hoedown, hula, and waltz.
She developed a love for all types of dance and continued to pursue it into her first year at Snow College where she soloed as The Swan from the Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saen. She also studied Violin performance and graduated from Snow College with an Associates of Arts in 2018. During her time at the junior college she deferred for 18 months to serve a mission for her church and was assigned to serve in North Macedonia. While there she was exposed to Balkan music and dance from local Macedonians and fell in love with the culture and people.
Shortly after returning home she transferred to Brigham Young University where she studied the Russian language and Cultural Dance. She performed with the International Folk Dance Ensemble and trained in additional cultural dance styles such as Indian, Irish, Scottish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Chinese, Indonesian, Mexican, African, Puerto Rican, Clogging, Tap, Charleston, and Canadian Step styles. After graduating from BYU she joined us here at IDAC as an intern for a year where she has been sharing her love of culture, music, and dance with our students. Although she is no longer local she continues to visit and substitute on occasion. She loves being a part of the IDAC family.
Josanna Hansen
Hi, I’m Josanna! Ive been married for 29 years and have 4 kids and 2 grandkids. I studied at ​San Joaquin Delta College with an AA in music theory and BYU-Idaho with a degree in English—so I work in a library by day and teach piano lessons in the afternoons. I’ve also helped run two choirs at the elementary schools in Rocklin for the past 10 years. I love helping kids develop a love of music and performing.