guest teachersMichael Lapina
Vocal Coach Tenor Michael Lapiña began his professional career in 1988 performing in musicals and touring extensively in Australia and Asia for Walt Disney. Since 2008 Michael has been engaged with many of Australia’s leading opera houses to perform some of the most coveted tenor roles in the operatic repertoire. Michael is regularly engaged as soloist on the concert, corporate, oratorio, grand and small opera stages including performances of the tenor soloist in Verdi’s REQUIEM, Puccini’s MESSA DI GLORIA and Handel’s MESSIAH and an extended series of opera concerts in major cities throughout China with the ROYAL MELBOURNE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA. In 2016, Michael performed the role of Normanno in Victorian Opera’s production of LUCIA DI LAMMERMOOR. Deon Nuku
Deon has worked extensively as a dancer/actor in film, television and theatre. His theatre credits include: West Side Story, Sisterella, Oh What A Nite, Fame, Footloose and Saturday Night Fever. Deon has toured with International artists Shaggy and Macy Gray, toured the U.K with Will Young, and worked with Kylie Minogue on 'Mushroom's 25th Birthday Celebration', and on her 'On A Night Like This' tour. His television credits include: The Aria Awards, X-Factor, Hey Hey It's Saturday, The A.F.I Awards, The Good Friday Appeal, The Logies, Fast Forward and Neighbours. Deon's performance highlight was as a featured dancer in the films 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Scooby Doo.’ Emma Kaman
Emma Kaman is a graduate of DanceWorld 301's Performing Arts School. Since 1996 Emma has appeared in many major national and international Musical Productions including: WEST SIDE STORY Australian and New Zealand Tour, RED HOT AND RHONDA The Showroom, Crown Casino Melbourne, CATS Operettenhaus, Hamburg, Germany, THE BOY FROM OZ Original Australian Tour with Todd McKenny, HAIR Raimund Theater Vienna, Austria, HUGH JACKMAN THE BOY FROM OZ Australian Tour, SWEET CHARITY State Theatre, Melbourne, 42nd ST State Theatre, Melbourne, THE BOY FROM OZ State Theatre, Melbourne, Capitol Theatre Sydney with Todd McKenny. Outside Musical Theatre Emma is also credited with many performances in Television, Film and Live Tours. Some of these include the AFI awards with Delta Goodrem, Deni Hines Australian Tour, Boytown (Mick Malloy), The Librarians (ABC) and Neighbours (CH10). Emma teaches at leading Performing Arts Courses around Melbourne including Spectrum, The Edge, VCA and PSA. Emma now dedicates most of her time to workshops and teaching and has been inspired to open her own school of dance initially focussing on Hip Hop, Jazz, Ballet, Tap and Musical Theatre. Phill Haddad
Phill has supported international artists such as Destinys Child, Boys 2 Men, K Ci & Jo Jo, JaRule, Ashanti, N Trance, Steps & Ru Paul to name a few. Musical credits include Shout, Oh What A Night, High Society, Annie Get You Gun & Grease the Arena Spectacular. Phill recently co-choreographed & toured nationwide with "Countdown" The Arena Spectacular & has been asked on board yet again to co-choreograph & tour Australia in 2007 with "Countdown 2" Carolyn Hasenkam
Carolyn is very committed & passionate vocal / drama coach her credits include “The 3 Sisters” vocal trio performed throughout Melbourne and Interstate. Chicago: Encore Performing Arts Studio (Choreographer), The Wiz: St Andrews Theatre Company (Choreographer) The Sound of Music: Altona City Theatre Stephen Morgante
Stephen grew up in Adelaide and from the age of 11 performed in pantomimes and musicals such as The King and I. He received his certificate in contemporary dance from the Centre of Performing Arts in Adelaide before being accepted into and graduating from the Australian Ballet School. In 1985 Stephen joined the Australian Ballet as a member of the Corps de Ballet. During the 10 years he was with the Australian Ballet he reached the rank of leading soloist, dancing such roles as Dr Coppelius in Coppelia, Alain and the Widow Simone in La Fille mal gardee, Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, the Psychiatrist in Equus and Hilarion in Giselle . He also toured overseas to many countries including the USA, Japan, China, the former Soviet Union and the United Kingdom where he performed for Her Majesty the Queen of England in the Bicentennial Royal Gala Performance. After a time away from the stage Stephen returned to join the Australian and New Zealand tour of The Phantom of the Opera. He was a cast member of the Singin’ In The Rain Australian and Asian Tour. In 2003 he was a cast member of Graeme Murphy’s production of Tivoli. Stephen has toured Australia with the Australian tour of CATS as well as China, Taiwan and Athens with the CATS World Tour, playing the roles of Skimbleshanks The Railway Cat and was also Resident Director of the South Korean CATS tour. In 2005/06 he was part of the “Dirty Dancing” Australian Tour. In 2007-2009 Stephen was engaged as Resident Artistic Director for the international tour of Cats touring South Korea and China. Following 2 tours of Sth Korea and China, Stephen then moved on to the position of Artistic Coordinator for the $250 US Million dollar production, “The House of Dancing Water” based in a purpose built Theatre in Macau working with Franco Dragone and Giuliano Peparini. Stephen was Resident for more than 2years in Macau and supported the creation of the said production and the operation of the show and for 6months was also the acting Artistic Director. While based in Macau Stephen trained in the Shaolin Martial Art and obtained a certification in Shaolin Qui Gong and also competed at the 10th Annual Hong Kong Wushu Championships receiving Gold and Silver Medals. Stephen and his family are now based in Melbourne. Megan Ibrahim
Megan was born to move, dance, flip and entertain. At the age of seven her doctors had told she a rare case of dyslexia and had to start gymnastics to get her eye and body coordination. By the age of 12 she was third Victorian champion and selected for the Institute of Sport for 2000 Sydney Olympics, unfortunately her body could not take the stress of gymnast and had to retire at 13. For years Megan was a typical lost teenager until she found her love for dance. At 18 she auditioned for Dance World 301 and hasn't stopped since. She has performed with Australian Shakespeare Company, Meatloaf, Robert Gallup Magic Show, Fox FM, Sth Dragons and Melbourne Tiger basketball, numerours film clips and commercials. Huge corporation floor shows, also modelling for Big W, Love Kylie, J Lo, adidas, Diadora, Bonds and Frank Muller. Megan also fall upon the stunt industry and material arts and has successful appeared on Rove, McLoed's Daughter, The Knowing (Nicolas Cage), The Bank Job (Jason Statemen), The Wedge, Neighbours and the Kath & Kim movie. Marissa Bird
Dancing never interested me growing up, I was always more interested in football and rough team sports. That was until my younger sister decided she wanted to take dancing lessons. I decided to give hip hop a go, which I enjoyed, and this lead me to try ballet, jazz, contemporary, etc and fell in love with the art of dance, this resulted in the end of my footy days. Now I take lessons of numerous styles and I hope to one day make my way into the industry and travel the world making a career out of the art and hopefully inspire other people to take dance classes. Elenya Performing Arts Center
2/36 Aylesbury Drive, Altona Email: [email protected] Phone: 1300 4Dance or 0423224032 |