Category: Dance Instructor

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Kim Graham

Owner and Artistic Director of Evergreen Dance Academy, was born in San Francisco, CA where her ballet training started at the age of 6. She continued on with her study of ballet at the University of Washington from 1984-1988 under the direction of Kitty Daniels and Hannah Wiley, where she performed in both classical ballet and modern dance roles. 

After completing university with a degree in Aerospace Engineering in 1988, Kim relocated to Los Angeles where she danced with The Long Beach Ballet under the direction of David Wilcox. She also danced as a soloist in Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral productions of The Glory of Christmas and The Glory of Easter. 

After retirement in 1993, Kim started teaching ballet in Hood River OR. After moving to the Vancouver area in 1997, she taught for Columbia Dance from 1997-2000. Kim started Evergreen Dance Academy in 2000. 

After battling breast cancer (and winning!) in 2022, Kim retired from teaching on a regular basis. She still enjoys being a part of every other aspect of her dance studio, especially putting on the yearly dance recital! 

In her free time Kim enjoys traveling and golfing with her husband Mike of 33 years. She has 2 children, Alastair (29), and Mikeala (27). 

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Carlyn Hudson 

Carlyn Hudson is the co-founder of SubRosa Dance Collective and Independent Choreographer hailing from Nyack, New York. Her early dance education focused in Classical Ballet and Jazz, before studying at the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase College, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2008. Carlyn teaches Classical Ballet and Pointe in both Washington and Oregon states while producing original works of contemporary dance. She has been an instructor at EDA for 10 years. 

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Chelsea Beyer

Chelsea Beyer has been dancing at EDA since she was 3, training in every type of dance she could and competing on Evergreen’s competition team. Not only does she currently take ballet at Evergreen, she also dances at her school, Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. EDA is like a second home for Chelsea and she wouldn’t choose any other place to spend her time and watch her students grow. She has been teaching at EDA for 4 years. 

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Jackie McManus-Genis 

Jackie McManus-Genis grew up in Seattle and received her dance training and performing experience on a full scholarship with Pacific Northwest Ballet. Her dream was to become a dancer and a writer. After graduating from the University of Portland with a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and later earning a CPRW credential in resume writing, Jackie enjoys living a purposeful life filled with ballet, writing, and teaching. Seeing the kids light up and have fun while dancing is joyous and soul-nourishing. This is her first year teaching at EDA. 

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Martin Ervin

Marty Ervin started training with Columbia Dance in 2005 and was a performing member of Columbia Dance Academy from 2006-2008. He attended Young Americans College of Performing Arts. Marty has toured with the Young Americans performing company throughout the United States and Japan. He returned to Vancouver looking forward to sharing his knowledge and passion for dance with the community. Marty is currently teaching at a number of studios in Vancouver and Portland. He has had multiple performing companies, as well as competitive teams, and is looking forward to continuing to branch out and teach more people in the community. He has been teaching at EDA for 13 years. 

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Russell Capps

Russell Capps began his dance training with Eric Hyrst of London’s Royal Ballet. His early studies embraced performing with the Jefferson Dancers. Intense training developed great respect and deep discipline for the art while working with distinguished choreographers. Russell enjoyed a dance career for more than 30 years with several notable ballet companies including Oregon Ballet Theatre, Nevada Dance Theatre, Los Angeles Classical Ballet, Ballet Oregon, Eugene Ballet, and Pacific Ballet Theatre. He performed many principal and soloist roles. Russell’s choreographic achievements include The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and neo-classical and modern ballets. He has been with EDA for 6 years. 

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Allie Moscarelli, Yoga Instructor

Allie has been practicing and teaching beginner-advanced level Traditional Hatha and Therapeutic Yoga for nearly two decades. 

Allie works with adults and kids from a variety of backgrounds in public and private settings, from high performance athletes to individuals graduating from Physical Therapy. For the past several years, Allie’s sessions have been geared toward patients of medical providers for the purpose of restoring the normal function of nerves, muscles, and the skeletal system. Training with Allie means getting personalized attention to correct alignment problems while moving out of a pain state due to chronic medical conditions or injuries.  Her regular clients have regained or developed a life condition of thriving health and wellbeing using a proven, systematic movement strategy based in Yoga Therapy techniques with science-based pilates principles. This training is easily geared towards fitness enthusiasts and Yoga practitioners of all levels for healing the body and skyrocketing the benefits of an existing fitness routine with personalized neuromuscular re-education sessions. Includes re-education in movement, balance, coordination, kinesthetic sense, posture, spinal health, flexibility, nervous system regulation, and proprioception.

After years of training in India and the United States with highly regarded yoga teachers of various lineages, physiologists, doctors, chiropractors, yoga therapists, and spiritual coaches, Allie offers biomechanics-based training and techniques for nervous system regulation—so her clients can change any stress or imbalance into a springboard for progress by way of optimizing the vehicle of the mind-body system.