meet the company
Photography by Jamie Younker
Caitlyn Jennings
Artistic Director
As Artistic Director of Valley Dance Ensemble, Caitlyn brings to the company a wealth of knowledge in non-profit management, business management, theatre, and dance. She has taught dance classes with several different companies, including Valley Dance Ensemble. She has previously danced, acted, stage managed, directed, choreographed, or otherwise worked onstage or backstage for many companies and schools regionally including Palace Playhouse, Heritage Theatre, Starlight Express, Dream Pointe Ballet, Dance Sport, Box Elder High School, Utah State University, Weber State University, Lagoon Amusement Park, Panoramic Theatre Company, Unicorn Theatre, Cache Theatre Company, Music Theatre West, Cache Valley Civic Ballet, Cache Valley Center for the Arts, and Utah Festival Opera Company. Her dance training is in jazz, lyrical, ballet, and modern dance
Marina Wagner
Artistic Director - VDE Youth
Marina took on the role of VDE-Youth Director in 2022 and directed The Quiltmaker’s Gift. She has been involved with VDE for the past 10 years and has loved being part of this company and teaching creative dance to children and youth of all ages. Prior to joining VDE she studied primarily ballet, jazz, and modern dance through private studios, dance teams and workshops. She graduated from BYU with a degree in Exercise Science.
Katie Anderson
Katie directed Valley Dance Ensemble from 2020-2022 and VDE-Youth from 2021-2022. She has been dancing, teaching, and choreographing with our company since 2014. Katie directed Priscilla and the Pink Planet (2016), STEAM (2021), The Magic Hat Shop (2022), and I am Woman (2022). She also directs VDE-Y’s yearly Halloween production of Under The Bed, and directed/filmed/edited VDE’s Dance for Film series. Before moving to Logan, Katie danced with BYU-I’s Collegiate Contemporary Dance Company and graduated with a Major in English Education and a Minor in Dance Education. She grew up in Star Valley, Wyoming, where her love for dance all began.
Tiffany Childress
Tiffany Elise Childress grew up in Sandy, Utah. She started dancing at the age of 11. In college she danced with BYU’s Dancensemble and The Dancer’s Company where she had the opportunity to perform and teach workshops across the US, Philippines, Korea, and India. As a finalist in the American College Dance Festival, she also had the opportunity to perform in the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. She worked as a teacher at Chows Gymnastics in Iowa, as well as Luling Dance arts and Uvalde Classical Dance in Texas. Currently she is teaching with VDE-youth, and is Director of Canyon Creative Dance. She is honored to be a part of Valley Dance Ensemble and be a part of Logan’s arts community.
Hayley Christiansen
Hayley began dancing when she was in the high school dance company. After high school she was able to be a part of the Dance Company at USU for a couple years. She enjoys ballet, modern, and contemporary. She works as the VP of Human Resources for a financial company in North Logan. Hayley and her husband have been married for eleven years and enjoy being outdoors and spending time with their 3 kids. Hayley loves being a part of VDE and has been with the company for 8 years.
Kelzie Devitt
Kelzie started dancing around the age of four. Growing up, she trained in jazz, contemporary, and ballet. Kelzie fell in love with ballet early on because of how technical it was, but quit her ballet classes to be on her high school dance company. This company taught her the beauty of expression through dance. Afer high school, she went to college at Utah State University and missed the joy that dance brought to her life. Kelzie’s sister had been dancing with the company for quite some time and invited her to try out. Kelzie joined Valley Dance Ensemble in 2019 and has really enjoyed having a creative outlet in her life. After graduating from the Utah State University Dietetics program, she moved away for a year but came back in 2022 and joined the company again soon after. She has choreographed pieces for two of the company’s shows including “I Am Woman” and the most recent one “Forces.” She has also taught the Limitless youth class for two years and loved that opportunity. In her spare time, Kelzie enjoys spending time with her husband, family, and friends. She also enjoys painting and drawing. Kelzie is grateful to be a part of this company and is excited for many more years of dancing.
Tessa Evans
After a 5 year absence from VDE in favor of full time travel, Tessa is thrilled to be back on stage- this time dancing alongside her daughter, Parker.
Tessa has had the opportunity to learn from and work with many talented dancers, choreographers and other artists in her time with VDE as a teacher and dancer and through her time serving as the VDEYouth Director and the Artistic Director for the adult company. Before coming to Cache Valley, Tessa danced on ballet and dance team scholarship at CEU, ran her own ballet and modern dance school and choreographed for groups, teams and soloists around the state. Now most of her time is spent homeschooling and adventuring with her family, teaching childrens ballet and creative movement and developing an online creative movement program to teach more about our world through dance.
Ella Gilbert
Ella began dancing at the age of 3 at C&C Ballet Academy in South Jordan, Utah. She has trained in many styles but her favorite remains ballet! Ella has had the amazing opportunity to perform in The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, and The 4 Sea Interludes with South Pointe Ballet. She was also selected as a dancer for the 2018 Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert with guest artists Sutton Foster and Hugh Bonneville. She is currently studying at Utah State University. Outside of dance, Ella loves school, hiking, reading, and getting to know new people!
Lauren Hansen
Lauren started dancing when she was three years old. As a little girl, she studied ballet, jazz, and hip-hop. When Lauren joined her junior high dance company, she was introduced to modern dance and she fell in love with the art. She loves story-telling through modern dance and has used it as an outlet to share personal and meaningful messages. Lauren has always enjoyed all forms of dance, but modern dance and dance parties in her kitchen with her children are her two favorites. Lauren has been dancing and teaching with VDE since 2016.
Coral Kirkman
Bio coming
ROnnie Love
Ronnie danced competitive starting at a young age and continuing through high school with Kimberly Hobbs and Dance Dynamics. She worked technique in ballet, jazz, contemporary, and others. In high school she enjoyed movement through cheerleading, and leadership through being head cheerleader. While she has been a member of VDE since 2019 this is only her second live show with them due to the 2020 show being cancelled by the pandemic. She loves the thrill of sharing her joy of movement with others from the stage. Ronnie is extremely grateful to be part of such a talented, uplifting, and supportive community provided by Valley Dance Ensemble.
Alyssa Luthi
Alyssa fell in love with dance at a young age, and as a mom of three little boys she is so excited to be on the stage and dancing again. She grew up in Ohio were she studied ballet, tap, jazz and toe tap under some beloved instructors as well as studying at Otterbein University, dancing with Dance Alive, and Jazz on Tap on Tour. Alyssa and her family moved to Utah almost three years ago and are so happy to have found a community that shares their love for the arts. This is Alyssa's first year dancing with Valley Dance Ensemble and she looks forward to many more.
Julia Moreland
Julia has danced with groups in Oregon, California, Massachusetts, and now Utah! She danced competitively for over 15 years before taking a brief hiatus from dance (and deep dive into yoga). Julia is thrilled to return to the stage with VDE and re-embrace her love of dance. She would like to thank her partner, Meghan, for trekking with her across the country this past year, and VDE for welcoming her with open arms! When she’s not dancing, you can find Julia working in tech, playing with her new pup, or adventuring in the mountains.
Annalee Roberts
Annalee is thrilled to be back on stage dancing with VDE. This is her second year with the company. She has a degree in Arts and Fine Arts with an emphasis in Musical Theatre and Dance. While she’s been taking a break from the performance side for the past several years, she’s been busy on the production side. She recently finished teaching a Musical Theatre Dance class for the Utah Festival Opera Conservatory. She has choreographed for Music Theatre West’s Beauty and the Beast, and directed/choreographed their showing of Bright Star in Concert. Her work has also been seen in Cache Theatre’s Bright Star and Once On This Island. She has choreographed for theater companies in Idaho as well as Wyoming. When not setting choreography, Annalee is usually building set pieces, and aiding as an acting coach. While she loves the production side, performing is where her heart is. Some of her favorite roles have been: Dotty in Noises Off, Grandma in Addams Family, Gingy/Sugarplum Fairy in Shrek, Sally in You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown, Abby in Arsenic and Old Lace, Rita LaPorta in the Lucky Stiff, and Kristine Urich in A Chorus Line. She was a dancer for the Desert Dance Company for two years, and has been a featured dancer in many musicals. When she’s not working in some capacity, whether with the public or her family, she’s usually curled up with a book and watching bad reality tv.
Parker Strubhar
Parker started dancing with VDE-Y at age 1 and proceeded to dance in their junior company. This season is Parker’s second year as a company member and third as a teacher at VDE-Y. Valley Dance ensemble has been a creative home to Parker going on 18 years now. Growing up in Logan Parker performed with several community theatre companies such as Unicorn theatre, Music Theatre West, Old Barn theatre, Cache theatre company and danced on and off with Cache Valley Civic ballet. Parker now works as a caregiver for adults with disabilities and enjoys writing music, playing instruments, yoga, Pilates, weightlifting and boxing in her free time.