Teaching Staff

Miss Kathleen has been instructing dance for over 20 years! She grew up in La Crosse, Wisconsin, dancing at Marilyn School of Dance, under the direction of Suzanne Swanson Wagner. She was captain of their performing troop, D’Vision Street Dancers, and traveled to many competitions, conventions, and performance trips as a student. She also became an assistant and student teacher at age 14. With Miss Suzanne, she was fortunate to attend several teacher training workshops in the Chicago area with CNADM.

Active in music and theater, Miss Kathleen moved to New York City in 1993 to attend the prestigious American Musical and Dramatic Academy. After graduating in Musical Theater, she toured the country with American Family Theater in two shows, Beauty and The Beast and Dinosaur Mountain and also appeared in two Off Broadway showcases in New York City. Kathleen then moved to Utah to instruct dance at Dance Arts, Dance Concepts, and New World Dance Theater. While in Salt Lake City, she choreographed several musicals, performed in several professional theater productions (including the Utah Premier of Phantom at the Grand Theater), and worked at the well-respected Hale Center Theater.

Miss Kathleen next moved to Oregon in 1996 to continue her career in the arts. After teaching at a few local studios, she took a break from teaching to perform as a headlining singer on the Mississippi Queen Steamboat, out of New Orleans. Upon her return in 2000, she founded Van De Veere Productions- Dance, Drama, Vocal, and Tumbling studios, offering classes in several styles, levels, and ages. She believes in continuing education for herself by attending conventions, judging competitions for Starpower Dance Competitions, and show directing. Kathleen is a professional singer, has released 2 solo CDs, and won “Best Actress in a Musical” for her performance as Sally Bowls in Cabaret and for Betty Blake in The Will Rogers Follies. As a musical theater choreographer, she has won Best Choreography Awards in 2005, 2007, and 2008 for Cabaret, Fiddler, and Chicago. Kathleen is still active in community, college, and professional theater as a performer and choreographer. She looks forward to directing and choreographing Footloose at the Gallery Theater in 2018.

As a sought after master choreographer, Kathleen travels the United States teaching master classes in all styles of dance, voice, and musical theater. She is excited to continue her work with several “sister” studios around the US. Kathleen was also the past dance director for Extreme Sports Camps (providing master dance classes for NIKE) and was active with Live On Stage, a Portland Theater Group.

Hamel Dance Academy owner and instructor Christine Hamel started her dance training when she was just three years old. She went on to train at the School of Pacific Ballet Theater (now known as Oregon Ballet Theater), Summer Dance Lab at Whitman College, Smith College, and Studio Flay Ballet in Geneva, Switzerland. Upon graduating from Smith College, with a degree in political science and French, and a minor in dance, Christine returned to Portland and danced professionally with St. Clair in Company for several years as well as performed in various classical ballets under the direction of Barbara Remington. She has taught for Portland Public Schools, Beaverton Arts and Communications School, Portland Parks and Recreation, Sherwood YMCA, and several private studios including Stites Performing Arts Center.

Additionally, Christine completed the Summer Dance Institute for Teachers Program at the Creative Dance Center in Seattle, Washington. She is passionate about teaching and enjoys watching her students progress in their training. Many of Christine’s former students have been accepted into leading dance programs such as Summer Dance Lab, the Joffrey Ballet School’s summer dance program, Paul Taylor Modern Dance summer intensive, NW Dance Project’s Summer Dance Institute, BodyVox’s JAG program and summer intensive, NYU Steinhardt summer dance intensive, the Da Vinci Performing Arts Magnet School, Dance West, Jefferson High School performing arts program, and various college dance programs. Christine has three sons and a daughter.

Irene has always had a love of dance and growing up around dancers inspired her to try out for the dance team in the 7th grade. This opened the door to 6 yrs of unbelievable experiences including competing and performing across Oregon and Washington State with the Mt. View Varsity Dance and Drill team in Vancouver, WA (which placed number one in State all years of participation.) Being part of such an amazing team led to travel and performances at Epcot Center, half time at the SuperSonics, the Starlight Parade, Grand Floral Parade, The Fiesta Bowl, and uncountable number of gymnasiums! After High School, Irene found a home in the ballet community and has spent the past 20 years studying and exploring various Russian techniques with several instructors. She has trained and studied under Janice Staley, Betsy Schott, Patty Millitich, Alan Coakley, April Schulte, and Jill Payne. Miss Irene has also trained in Modern, Lyrical, Classical Jazz, Yoga, Qi-gong, and performed with Cabaret Allumage, Vancouver Dance Theatre, and Dance Festival Northwest. She is an experienced instructor in all levels of ballet, pointe and jazz.

Miss Irene holds a BS degree from the University of Washington in Cellular, Molecular, and Developmental Biology with a minor in microbiology and spent 6 years working in a recombinant DNA lab before fate and circumstances led her to return to the dance world in 2013 as the proud owner and operator of Mia’s Dancewear. Miss Irene hopes to inspire her students with her love of ballet and help them firmly root their love of dance in strong technique. This is her second year teaching for VDV.

Miss Jeanna has been a coach/instructor for 12 years. She graduated with a degree in Sociology, with an emphasis on sports from Linfield College. Having a background in Sociology has allowed her to break down complicated skills and accommodate all types of learning. For the past 8 years, she has taught with the McMinnville Parks & Rec Gymnastics program, which she co-founded in 2010. She began teaching Tumbling/Acro for Van De Veere Productions in 2013. Jeanna’s classes offer an exciting element for all dance styles and she is excited to continue teaching for the studio.

Miss Karie grew up dancing, performing and competing.  After being married and having 2 kids, she decided to go back to school as a dance major at University of Akron in Akron, OH.  She passed advanced technique levels in Ballet, Modern & Pointe along with other dance education and anatomy classes.  She has also studied and earned certifications in Yoga, Barre, Pilates, POP Pilates, & Progressing Ballet Technique.  In Houston she taught technique classes to competition level dancers, worked with high school drill teams and cheer teams, taught power Yoga and Pilates to dancers, and was a leading teacher and choreographer for The Nutcracker.  She performed with and taught classes to a small dance company in Brookings, and also taught yoga, pilates, & barre in the community.  Karie has attended master classes in every major city she has lived and enjoys being a student and learning from others.

Noah Miller is excited to be a choreographer and teacher at VDV this year! He was a competitive dancer and singer with VDV for 8 years, and also has taught various other classes in music and theatre. From the age of 3, Noah has always had a passionate fervor for the arts, which has led to him receiving numerous awards for competitive dance, drama, and singing. Some of these include being named a 2019 Onstage New York Triple Threat, multiple Platinum and 5-Star competitive solo rankings, and director’s awards for leading musical roles. He is currently studying contemporary music (with a focus in vocal performance) at Western Oregon University and will be pursuing musical theater as well. In his free time, Noah enjoys making and listening to the music he loves, caring for various animals, and dancing up a sweat! Noah will also be choreographing for upcoming shows and children’s camps, as well as for VDV students’ competition season solos/duos.

Miss Sara grew up in Newberg and started taking dance with Miss Kathleen in 2002. She competed on the Elite team with Van De Veere Productions and earned multiple Diamond awards at Spotlight for her lyrical solos. During her time as a student at Oregon State University, she was a member of The Elite Dance Team and also a captain of the team for one year.

While working on her Master’s in School Counseling, Sara taught contemporary at VDV West Linn for two years. Sara is now in her third year as an Elementary School Counselor, and she loves that both jobs allow her to work with kids on maximizing their full potential. She enjoys yoga, hiking, gardening, and also has a 14 pound cat named Mulder. This is her fifth year teaching at VDV McMinnville.

Tim Marl has grown up in the Portland area for most of his life. He started dancing at the age of 4 in his bedroom, copying music videos from MTV. In 2010, Tim started dancing at Vega Dance Lab. Two years later, he performed with a Portland dance company at the Newmark Theater in a hip hop version of The Wizard of Oz. Since then, Tim has performed in 5 different productions in various theaters in Portland. During this time, Tim has been a hip hop coach for a high school dance team, choreographed for various competitions, created hip hop camps, and directed his own dance videos on YouTube. Currently, Tim is a member of Lyfe Dance Company, performing at various events in the Portland area. He is also the Director of Rogue Society, a newly formed dance company. Tim has been a past guest choreographer for Van De Veere Productions and is starting his sixth year as an instructor.