
Alison began dancing at age 3. She started her training in Goulburn with Irene Gelfius School of Dance, as she lived in small town Braidwood. Many years later her family re-located to Canberra and she began dancing with the RSDA. Alison is trained in Classical Ballet, Broadway/Jazz, Modern Contemporary and Hip Hop. Alison began assistant teaching at the age of 15 and spent many days of the week helping at the dance studio. Alison completed her Certificate in Ballet Teaching Studies through the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) in 2006. As a student she was involved in many Competitions, Festivals, Galas and achieved great results in all her Examinations and Competitions.
In 2008 Dare to Dance Canberra Opened and as Principal, Director and Teacher Alison along with D2D has gone from strength to strength. Alison is incredibly passionate about teaching her love and loves all her students like they are her own children. She is nurturing and treats all students with love and respect. Some of Alison's students have even returned as Adults. Her ethos is about providing all children the opportunity to dance no matter what their skill level is. It's not just about "Winning" all of the time.
Alison runs D2D completely on her own and has since the age of 21. Alison is in charge of Administration, Staff, Advertising, Costuming, Planning as well as Teaching. Alison continues to develop skills and knowledge through many studies and courses, keeping up Continuing Professional Development. This ensures she is able to keep up with demanding industry. Alison tries to ensure she teaches all the students at some stage through their dance journey as she likes to know all of the students my name.
Alison was a Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards finalist for 2014 and shortlisted under two categories. Young Business Woman and Entrepreneur.
Welcome to the team Cassandra for 2021! Cassandra (Miss Cassie), trained in the RAD and CSTD Syllabus in Malaysia and then furthered her training in Darwin in the Vaganova Syllabus. Cassandra then joined the Melbourne City Ballet as a full-time student. In 2020 Cassandra Graduated with the National Theatre Ballet School with an Advanced Diploma of Elite Performance. Cassandra will be teaching Ballet at D2D in 2021 to our higher Grades and Vocational students.
Frances Junakovic
Frances came in to the dance world later than most. Starting on the football field you would find her doing cartwheels instead of touch downs.
As she grew older, the love for dance came out even more, and at the age of 15 she joined PLAY the dance agency and excelled straight away. Soon after she was in a Hip Hop Crew and competing. By the age of 18 she started assisting her teacher with classes at Primary schools during lunch breaks, and not long after she started teaching herself at PLAY.
After graduating college with an Outstanding Achievement in Dance she took a gap year and assisted in teaching dance whilst working hard with multiple jobs.
Later on Frances realized dance was such a passion and she loved watching others grow and wanted to help them by teaching at more schools. She is now partnered with Active Attitudes, and teaching at multiple Primary Schools, at PLAY and now D2D.
Frances joined D2D in 2020!
We are welcoming Jim to our D2D team for 2021. Jim has been dancing for 17 years in a variety of different styles and regularly trains in Sydney as a part of ‘One Dance Collective.’ They are all about having fun with dance and try to make every class enjoyable and entertaining.
Jim's favorite styles are Hip Hop, Tap and Contemporary because they allow Jim to use their innate groove and rhythm and to create movement that is both fun and interesting to watch.
Jim will be teaching predominantly Tap and will be our relief teacher from time to time.