Michelle Willadsen Harris is elated to have her family back home in Buffalo, and she is filled with immense joy to return to Dance Spectrum, the studio where her lifelong love for dance first began. For Michelle, sharing the creativity and joy of dance has always been her absolute passion. She believes deeply in the transformative power of the arts and the beautiful community fostered inside the studio walls. Michelle trained continuously at Dance Spectrum from ages 5 to 17 before being accepted into the University at Buffalo Department of Theatre and Dance as a high school senior. She graduated in 2000, earning her BFA degree cum laude on a prestigious institutional "Talentship" scholarship. As a prominent force within UB’s Zodiaque Dance Company, she served as a featured dancer, Rehearsal Director, and Commissioned Choreographer before launching into an international performance career with Carnival Cruise Lines. Relocating to Branson in 2003, she performed in several major commercial theater productions before transitioning her love for the art into academia and entrepreneurship. Michelle served as an Adjunct Instructor at Drury University, authoring and building their university dance minor program from scratch. Over an 18-year tenure in Missouri, she engineered her own studio brand, Midwest Dance Revolution, from the ground up from a flagship location in Branson to a second location just north in Nixa. The first ten years of her flagship operations were focused completely on advanced technical tracks, including hosting highly sought-after late-night professional classes for the active theater performers in town, while her Nixa location was custom-built to cater beautifully to preschool and younger developmental dance. This dual-market architecture gave Michelle a profound, comprehensive understanding of dance education across all levels and ages before she successfully executed a liquidation buyout of her business to a studio alumnus. Her greatest pride as an educator remains the diverse, professional success of her former students, whose paths span from commercial pros featured on New York and Los Angeles stages and Steps on Broadway videos, to national tour choreographers, to Harvard doctorate graduates like Trey Hale. Her alumni network also features prominent business owners and chart-topping artists, including Sarah Blackerby of the Atrium Wedding and Event Center, country music artist Nathan Applegate in Nashville, and Brooke McClish, who operates a multi-location ballroom studio network in Tennessee while ranking 4th in the world in Professional Cabaret. A certified master educator and national judge for premier talent systems including Dance Masters of America, Starpower, Masquerade, and Talent On Parade nationwide, Michelle's greatest joy remains mentoring students and supporting fellow artists. It is so much fun to be back, and she is excited to bring her 26-year pedigree full circle to support executive operations and share her heart with the next generation of the Dance Spectrum family.