Instructors

Kris Stein: Executive Director

Kris established Dance By Kris in 1996. She has been dancing all her life and developed a love of teaching early in her teens. As a dancer she has won many awards and scholarships, but her love and passion has always been to teach! As a teacher and studio owner she has received many awards in choreography, studio spirit, and numerous top studio awards including an FDC national top studio award. Her students have developed a love of dance, won titles, overall championships, gone on to dance with the Timberwolves, college dance teams, and professional dance companies. Many have also gone on to share their love of dance and teach. She loves watching her students grow into amazing men and women, and seeing the impact dance has had on their lives!

In the classroom, Kris invests herself in her students and works to help them become not only amazing dancers but amazing people! By surrounding herself and students with great teachers, a positive environment, and a love of dance she hopes to share all the benefits of dance with each and every student who walks through the Dance By Kris doors.

Jayden Stein

Jayden Stein started dancing right here at Dance By Kris at the young age of just seventeen months old! Her desire to share what she loves led her to become an assistant teacher at the age of twelve. She continued dancing through high school graduating as a member of the Senior Company. Jayden is now currently in her fourth year as a recreational dance teacher.

Studying and competing in many styles of dance, she has found much success earning titles in both regional and national competitions. Her persistence and hard work as both a soloist and a team member has earned scholarships, overall placements, and invitations to perform in various shows and competitions across the country! She has performed in the Twin Cities Tap Festival as an Elite Tap Feet member for four years. Jayden has also performed at the Kidz Rock Festival located in Branson as a duet member for two years in a row.

Although Jayden loves to perform onstage, she also has a passion for sharing what she loves! Jayden can’t wait to get to know the children in her classes and see them improve and grow throughout the year!

Jill Meeker

A New Jersey native, Jill has over 30 years of experience teaching all disciplines of dance including Ballet, Tap, Jazz and Musical Theater. She studied under the watchful eye of many New York City instructors such as Charles Kelley, Phil Black, Henry LeTang and Jermaine Salsberg. Jill is no stranger to the musical theater stage having performed in many productions. Favorite rolls include Kristine in “A Chorus Line”, June in “Gypsy” and Velma in “West Side Story”. Jill is thrilled to be a member of the Dance By Kris staff!

Kyle Gross

Kyle has received over 12 years of extensive training at Dance By Kris, including tap, jazz, ballet, musical theater, lyrical, and hip hop. While on the Dance By Kris competition lines, Kyle received numerous overall high score and special judges’ awards through his solo and group routines. He also won the national “Mr. Masquerade” title in 2011.

Kyle is a graduate of the University of Minnesota – Carlson School of Management with majors in Marketing and Supply Chain Operations Management and a minor in Mass Communications. While at the U of M, Kyle danced with “MinnesoTap” – the University of Minnesota’s tap dance company, serving as both President and Artistic Director. He was also a contemporary dancer for Breaking Boundaries Dance Company in Minneapolis.

Kyle is entering his ninth season of teaching at Dance By Kris. As a teacher, Kyle has received numerous choreography awards, costume awards, and overall high score placements for his routines. He enjoys teaching his dancers about accountability, work ethic, and communication in addition to dance technique. Kyle is looking forward to sharing his passion for all styles of dance with his students!

Laura McMorrow

Laura grew up dancing at Yackel Dance Studio where she studied jazz, lyrical, ballet, and tap. She danced on their competition lines for 12 years. Laura continued her dance training at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. Laura was a member of Dance Theater for 3 years at the university. She received a degree in Elementary Education, Early Childhood Education, and Dance Education.

Laura joined Dance By Kris in 2016 as a recreational teacher. She has 5 children of her own, 3 of them are in competition and 2 in recreational classes. Laura enjoys sharing her passion for working with children and bringing the love of dance our younger dancers.

Lauren Gross

Lauren grew up dancing at Woodbury Dance Center where she studied jazz, lyrical, ballet, and tap. As a competition dancer, Lauren's solos placed in the top ten at competitions such as Hall of Fame and Showbiz. Lauren continued her dance training at the University of Minnesota where she graduated with a Bachelor of Individualized Studies with concentrations in Dance, Holistic Health, and Cultural Studies. During her time at the U of M, Lauren danced professionally for University Dance Theater, Eclectic Edge Ensemble, and Breaking Boundaries Dance Company. Lauren also works as a competition instructor and choreographer for Lake Area Dance Center where she has received numerous choreography awards for both solos and small groups.

Lauren joined the Dance By Kris family in 2014 as a regular instructor and choreographer for all ages. Body awareness, character, and connecting lessons learned in dance to everyday life are some of her most passionate teachings. Lauren also enjoys making costumes for our competition line dancers through her business LTG Costumes LLC. She loves sharing her knowledge and excitement for dance with the Dance By Kris students!

Leah Eastman
Leah started dancing at the age of five at Yackel Dance Studio, where she started studying tap, jazz, and ballet. She is also an alumnus of Dance By Kris where she spent most of her dance career competing regionally and nationally from the age of nine to twenty-two! While at DBK she was introduced to lyrical and one of her favorite styles, hip hop. She was also on the South Saint Paul Dance Team where she danced both on the Varsity Jazz and Varsity High Kick teams.

After graduating high school, Leah taught recreational classes and assisted competition lines at DBK. She also helped coach the Dance Team at Saint Croix Lutheran High School. While in college, she participated in Concordia University-St.Paul’s spring dance show. At Concordia she received a degree in Elementary Education. Leah is currently working at East Ridge High School as a High Needs Special Ed. Paraprofessional where she has worked many different disabilities. She plans to go back to school and get a Special Education teaching degree. Leah is excited to be back for another year and can’t wait to share her passion of dance!

Lee Violet
Lee Violet received her early dance training at Mankato Ballet Company (MBC) in Mankato, Minnesota. Ms. Violet studied with MBC through high school and continued her dance training at the University of Minnesota, studying with both Bonnie Mathis and Lise Houlton. She is a former company member of Bloomington’s Continental Ballet Company and has been teaching in the Twin Cities for over 20 years. She loves giving her students strong visuals and vivid analogies to help them more easily grasp the often complicated world of ballet. Her biggest reward is helping them achieve those “a-ha” moments to understanding dance.

Macy Anderson
Macy grew up dancing at 5 Star Dance Studio where she studied jazz, ballet, tap, lyrical, musical theater, and hip hop. She was a competitive dancer in their program for her last 6 years at 5 Star. Macy continued her dance training at Northern State University on the Northern Highlights Dance Team. Her college dance team danced during the half time shows for football and basketball games, state parades, and they also were part of the 2013 inaugural parade for President Obama. Macy graduated from Northern State University with a Bachelor of General Studies emphasis areas in Education, Health, and Humanities along with a Coaching Minor. Today, Macy works as a Guardian/Conservator for Thomas Allen Inc. working physically and mentally vulnerable adults.
Macy joined the Dance by Kris family by helping the office in 2014 and started teaching recreational classes in 2015. She wants to share her passion for all styles of dance with all her students.

Shannon Fahey

Shannon, originally from New York, received a BA in Dance from Mercyhurst University in Pennsylvania. She has taught ballet and pointe for 22 years to both recreational and competitive dancers. Following graduation, Shannon danced professionally with Ballet Long Island, Huntington Ballet Theatre and Continental Ballet. She has performed in several classical ballets such as Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Coppelia and Swan Lake. Shannon enjoys sharing her passion of ballet with her students and looks forward to her 3rd year at Dance by Kris.

Sheena Krebsbach
Sheena started dancing when she was just 2 years old. She danced for only a couple years before moving to the Cottage Grove area. She played other sports for many years and then found her way back to dance in High School. At that time, she joined Dance By Kris and danced competitively for many years. Sheena began assistant teaching in 2002, mentored under Kris. The following year she started teaching classes on her own. Sheena absolutely loves teaching our youngest learners at the studio! Watching the kids learn and grow is by far the most rewarding part of her job. Looking back over the years it has been an amazing adventure. Some of the kids that she taught in her first couple years of teaching are now some of the most talented dancers she knows. Amazingly, she has been around so long that even some of the teachers currently on staff at Dance By Kris were once her students.

When not teaching dance, Sheena is a Sales Support Manager for The Linn Companies. She is happily married and has two fantastic children; Miles is 5 and just started Kindergarten and Mila is 4 a preschooler that also dances here at the studio.

Sheena would like to thank Kris Stein for the things she has taught her and the opportunities she has given her!

Taylor Perryman

Taylor grew up dancing at Dance By Kris where she studied jazz, tap, lyrical, ballet, and musical theater. As a competitive dancer, Taylor won a variety of overall placements, judges choice awards, and scholarships through her solos and group dances. Taylor has also won the titles of Miss and Teen Miss Masquerade and was a National Senior Solo Division Champion at Masquerade.
After high school, Taylor started working for Masquerade Dance Competition as a backstage manager. For three seasons Taylor got to travel the country watching and working with a variety of different dancers, teachers, and studios. Taylor is now set to graduate in December of 2019 from Concordia University - Saint Paul with a degree in Communications, with hopes to pursue a career in social media and public relations.
This will be Taylor’s first year on the Dance By Kris staff and she is very excited to share her love and knowledge of dance with her students!

Wesley Rocha

Wesley Rocha is from Vitória, Brazil. Wesley began classical ballet training at Expressão & Arte Studio de Dança in Cariacica, Brazil under the direction of Helen Cristine. In 2003 he received his training at the ballet school Espaco da Danca in Villa Velha. In 2008 he moved to Rio de Janeiro for complete his training at school of dance Petite Dance. In 2009 he joined the ballet company Dancar a Vida (Dancing Life Company) in Rio de Janeiro.

Wesley has performed in the following Brazilian acclaimed original spectaculars: Villa Lobos, Uma Cançáo de Amor, Nos Passos da Dança, De Tudo se Faz Canção and Enquanto A Banda Passar. Each show was performed live in 60 performances over a 6 month period. He has performed guest principal roles in full-length productions of The Nutcracker, Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Giselle. He also performed roles as La Bayadère, Pas d`Action, La Corsair pas deux, Coppelia,Pas de Duex, feridool pas de trois, Peasant Pas de Deux, Swan Lake Pas de trois and Harlequinade. Wesley also participated in the biggest Competitive Exhibition dance festivals in Brazil from 2009-2011. After moving to Minneapolis, Wesley joined Continental Ballet Company where he has danced professionally since 2015.