Gretchen Becker is a Certified Licentiate Ballet Teacher Member of the Cecchetti Council of America (CCA) with completion of students’ and teachers’ exams I-VI.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan with a focus on child development and dance technique.  She trains students and teachers into professional level and sponsors student and teacher candidates for certification through CCA.  Gretchen began her dance training in the Cecchetti Method of classical ballet and later added Graham Technique, tap, jazz, musical theater, swing, voice, liturgical, and floor barre.  She continued her training an additional two years in New York at Steps on Broadway and Broadway Dance Center with Finis Jhung, Madame Darvash, Frank Hatchett, Sheila Barker, Gil Stroming, and Mia Michaels.  She has also completed many courses in quality of movement, arts education and equity, inclusion, mindfulness, formative assessment, trauma and resiliency, and the art of student discussion through CCA, Juilliard Creative Classroom, Lincoln Center Activate and Rhythm Works Integrative Dance.  Gretchen was a member of the Lansing Ballet Company II performing in Sleeping Beauty and La Fille Mal Garde.  Later she performed in Martha Graham's Panorma with the University of Michigan, Scrooge with Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania, and West Side Story with Grosse Point Theatre in Michigan.  She choreographed Tale of Beethoven's Bookworms and Broadway History 1891-1999 for Calhoun School (NYC, NY), Footloose the Musical and White Christmas the Musical for Three Rivers High School (Three Rivers, MI).  Gretchen has adjudicated for the Michigan State University Dance Team, the Children's Ballet Company of Lansing, and Ballet Arts Ensemble.  She was also a recurring guest teacher for the Macomb Arts Festival, PUCC and KCC christian retreats, and the WMCCA Ballet Day scholarship classes.  Gretchen was a Certified Dance Educator of Dance Masters of Michigan (DMM) and Dance Masters of America (DMA) (2001-2010).

As a dance educator Gretchen has worked for over 25 years in private and public schools.  Currently, Gretchen is a Dance Teaching Artist with Education for the Arts (EFA), Kalamazoo RESA.  She teaches and develops dance residencies for K-12 programs including Aesthetic Education (AE), PACE Program, and Alternative Arts Initiative (AAI).  Gretchen also develops video classroom lessons for AE, PACE and EFA Presents with topics including music/dance connections, social emotional learning, work of art discovery, and performance readiness.  She is the Western Michigan CCA Chair and WMCCA Registrar and is the owner of both Becker's Dance Arts and of Ballet Arts School of Dance.

Gretchen and her husband Jay live in Portage and have two adult sons.

Bella Nakon is a member of the Cecchetti Council of America and holds Teachers’ Grade I and Grade II Certificates, as well as successful examinations in Students’ Grade I-V (Elementary Professional).  Bella began her dance journey with pre-ballet classes at the age of 2 years old.  She then included in her training ballet, jazz, lyrical, modern, and pointe, and began assisting classes.  She found her love of teaching!  She began teaching and choreographing at American Dance Academy where she continues to return, helping with performances.

She is continuing her dance training with working toward her Cecchetti Student Intermediate Professional (VI) Exam and her Cecchetti Teacher Grade III Exam.  She is also attending Western Michigan University studying Elementary Education and holds an executive position in her sorority Sigma Kappa.  Bella is the 2025 full Scholarship Recipient attending the Cecchetti International Teacher Seminar at Hope College.

Bella’s goal is to make a positive impact to those around her, creating an environment where her students can thrive and grow at Ballet Arts School of Dance. 

Melissa grew up dancing at Ballet Arts School of Dance and was in the Ballet Arts Ensemble for 3 years in high school. She performed in BAE productions of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, Les Sylphides, and La Boutique Fantasque. She studied modern, jazz, ballet and passed the Cecchetti grade I exam. Melissa attended several summer intensives at Ballet Arts as well as the Grand Rapids Ballet and the Cecchetti Council of America. 

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Melissa holds a degree in Electronic Media Production with a minor in dance from Kent State University. She has worked in the special event industry for five years. She recently transitioned from her position at Wings Event Center to her new position as the Events Coordinator at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Michigan. This June she joined as a board member of the Ballet Arts Ensemble. 

Currently residing in Kalamazoo, Melissa lives with her husband Corey and their two cats.

Seyong Kim is originally from Seoul, South Korea and is currently an Assistant Professor of Dance at Western Michigan University. He holds an MA in Dance Education from New York University and and MA in Dance from Sung-Kyun-Kwan University in South Korea. He is a CMA (Certified Movement Analyst) from Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, a RSME (Registered Somatic MovementEducator) at ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association), and a PBT (Progressing Ballet Technique) Certified Teacher. Seyong is an ABT® Certified Teacher, who has successfully completed the ABT® Teacher Training Intensive in Primary through Level 7 of the American Ballet Theatre’s National Training Curriculum. Additionally, he earned Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell University. Seyong has taught for Rutgers University, Kent State University, Randolph College, Peridance, Texas A&M International University, Libera University in Italy, World Dance Alliance (WDAA), Americas, American College Dance Association (ACDA), Brighton Dance
Festival, Michigan Youth Arts Festival (MYAF), Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, National High School
Dance Festival, Alabama Dance Festival, Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company, Charlottesville Ballet, and Ballet Arts Ensemble.

As a professional dancer, Seyong has danced with Metropolitan Opera Ballet at Lincoln Center, Albania Opera Ballet Theatre, Staten Island Ballet, Baltimore Ballet, Traverse City Dance Project, Neglia Ballet, TAKE Dance, and Oakland Ballet Company. In addition, his choreographic works have been internationally invited at Landestheater Coburg Germany, Dance in ITALY Festival, Dzul International Dance Festival in Mexico, Taiwan JueDai Taipei International Dance Festival, ProArteDanza in Canada, Seoul International Dance Festival in TANK, Battery Dance Festival, Lindenwood University, Cleveland Dance Festival, Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival, Chicago International Dance Forum, Detroit Dance City Festival, Boston Contemporary Dance Festival, Orlando Contemporary Dance Choreography Festival, Oklahoma International Dance Festival, KYL/D Inhale on Camera, Jazz in
Lincoln Center, and Nimbus OFFLINE+ at the BAM Fisher.

Carly grew up dancing at The Dance Zone in Paw Paw, while also participating in gymnastics and ice skating.  She danced for a total of 15 years, 10 of which were competitively.  During that time she competed in Jazz, Contemporary, Lyrical, Acro, Hip-Hop, and production numbers.  She took Ballet classes for technique for all 15 years at the Dance Zone.  Once she graduated from Mattawan High School, she earned degrees in Early Childhood Education and Spanish from Western Michigan University.  Throughout her time at Western, she taught Basic Skills for ice skating and competed on an adult Synchro skating team for a year… However, she definitely prefers to dance. After graduating from college, she taught third grade at Comstock Elementary for four years and began teaching at Ballet Arts. She is now able to stay home with her twins, run her officiating business (Curry Up and Get Married), and teach at Ballet Arts School of Dance.

Kelsey Paschich is a multi-faceted dance artist and educator originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico and currently based in Kalamazoo, MI. Paschich is an Assistant Professor of Dance at Western Michigan University and is the Artistic Director of the student performing company, Western Dance Project. Paschich holds an MFA in Dance from the University of New Mexico and a BFA (Cum Laude) from Point Park University. Paschich is 1 of 10 certified Countertechnique® teachers in the U.S. and 1 of 36 globally. Paschich received her Countertechnique® Teacher Certification in Melbourne, Australia, with founder Anouk van Dijk, in 2016. 

Paschich’s foundational dance training was in classical ballet and Cecchetti. She also trained at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, Russia. Her international performing career spans over 20 years in contemporary, jazz, and classical ballet repertoire. Professionally, she has performed extensively with: The Moscow State Classical Ballet, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company 2, Thodos Dance Chicago, River North Chicago Dance Company, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Interdansa Dance Festival, Keshet Dance Company, ARCOS Dance, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and Lawine Torrèn (Dance Theatre Machines Media) in the Hannibal Project in Sölden, Austria. She has performed the repertory of choreographers: Robert Battle, José Limón, Ann Reinking, Lucas Crandall, Lar Lubavitch, Tamir Ginz, Margo Sappington, Johan Renvall, Kevin O’ Day, Alan Heinline, Joanie Smith, Frank Chavez, Melissa Thodos, Zac Whittenburg, Curtis Uhlemann, Robert Moses, Gail Gilbert, Donna Jewell, Erika Pujic, Lawine Torrèn, Tomaz Simatovic, and others. Paschich’s professional experience, informs her pedagogical methodology in providing a progressive and holistic education to cultivate the next generation of dance artists.

Paschich is also a choreographer and creates live & digital work that explores the moving body and its relationship to technology. Paschich's multimedia work includes: screendance, dance for film, and choreographic installations. Most recently she has been experimenting and developing work with motion capture technology in collaboration with interactive media specialist, Kevin Abbott. Her digital work has been screened in Istanbul, Lisbon, Ulm, Denver, Michigan, and across the United States. Paschich is the recipient of Distant Digital Dance Maker commission for Tanz mit dem Tiger 2021 (Ulm, Germany), Creative Living for Dancers Award 2021 (Brussels, Belgium), the Dancing Lab Residency at the National Center for Choreography at the University of Akron (NCCAkron) 2021, she was an invited presenter at the Society of Korean Dance Studies International Symposium 2021 (Seoul, Korea) and was the recipient of the National Dizzy Feet Foundation Gene Kelly Legacy Scholarship in 2016. Paschich is the Founder and Artistic Director of project_whitewall, that is  an incubator for the experimentation and creation of live & digital dance.Her work often utilizes multi-media elements inspired by surrealism as the theoretical + conceptual framework. She views dance as a medium that can embolden change for a better world. 

McKenna Morris discovered her love of dance at the age of three. She is a Cecchetti
trained dancer with successful completion of Student's Exams I-IV and has also studied

jazz, lyrical, contemporary, hip hop and tap.  McKenna has competed extensively and has earned Title awards, Judge’s Awards, Convention Scholarships and Emerging
Artist Awards. 

Beginning to choreograph at 15, McKenna created a contemporary competition
solo for herself. This experience led to more choreographic opportunities in jazz, lyrical,
contemporary and hip hop. Her work has been recognized with Choreography awards
at competitions. 

McKenna has taught classes in contemporary, jazz, pre-ballet, hip hop, conditioning

and leaps & turns. She has also been a recurring guest teacher for Center Stage Dance Academy, Western Michigan CCA Ballet Day and Becker's Dance Arts.  She facilitates and teaches audition classes for competition teams.  

McKenna is a certified personal trainer at West Hills Athletic Club.  She is in her senior year at Western Michigan University, double majoring to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Dance

with a certification in Dance Studio Management, as well as Bachelor of Science
Degree in Exercise Science. She is excited to share her passion for dance with the students at Ballet Arts School of Dance.