Eva Zitterkob-Hoke
Owner and Founder
Eva Zitterkob-Hoke received her Masters Degree in Performing Arts Leadership and Management from Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. In 2013 she received her Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre Arts Studies from Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah. At BYU she also studied contemporary, jazz, dance improvisation and composition, along with acting in the Stanislavsky and Alexander techniques. Eva has been a dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor since 2007. Through her years of teaching dance, her students have ranged in age from preschoolers to senior adults. Eva’s dance training began in 2000 with ballet, tap, lyrical, and jazz instruction. At nine years old she became interested in taking dance classes during a summer arts academy in her hometown of Weatherford, Oklahoma. In 2001, while continuing her dance training, Eva began performing in community theatre at Southwest Playhouse (SWPH) in Clinton, Oklahoma. Her first role was a schoolgirl in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In 2005, after dancing with a ballet company in The King and I at SWPH, she moved her dance training to study with Penny Askew (currently with the Askew Ballet Academy) at Western Oklahoma Ballet Academy, focusing on classical ballet and modern dance.
Eva choreographed her first musical, Clue, the Musical, in 2007 at SWPH. Through 2013 she performed, choreographed, and taught dance numbers for SWPH productions. Eva learned her love of dance grew through choreographing and teaching. She choreographed for seven community theater productions and performed in over 21 productions as well. In 2013, Eva worked as a gymnastics coach and dance adviser at Olympic Gold Gymnastics in Clinton, Oklahoma, teaching basic dance techniques and performance strategies under the direction of head coach Sherrel Johnston. While there, she observed the benefit of dance training for gymnasts, along with the potential value of gymnastics training for dancers.
In 2018, Eva became certified with Acrobatic Arts in Acro Dance, enabling her to incorporate her gymnastics acumen, acquired while at Olympic Gold, with dance. Eva is excited to see the world of dance shift to requiring acro training and certification for acro teachers. She believes these measures are essential to assure the safety of dancers and teachers. Through Acro, Eva has been able to travel around Virginia, Maryland, Canada, and more locations in the coming year. Eva loves Acro and is excited to be teaching and sharing the many opportunities acro can add to dance training. Eva believes in continual education and that one is never done learning. In 2020, Eva became certified with Alixa Flexibility to assist her in providing a strength/flexibility curriculum to incorporate and expand her students’ education and continual safety in classes. Eva has a strong focus on physical and mental safety in dance education and is aware of how children develop as they continually grow in performing arts. As a performing child herself, Eva has seen and experienced the short term and long term effects of what good and poor training can have on an individual as they continue to grow. Eva finds joy in teaching and continually strives to be a positive influence in her students' lives.
Eva also feels dance is a great way to express feelings and emotions while bringing a calming balance to a busy life. Eva currently holds three certifications with Acrobatic Arts and two with Alixa Flexibility. She has plans to get more certifications in the future.
Lydia Roderick
Substitute
Lydia Roderick grew up in a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. At the age of two she could not stop twirling in her parent’s living room and was signed up for classes as soon as she was old enough to begin fulfilling her passion. Since then she has completed over twenty years of dance training. She focused on classical ballet, but through her various experiences she has had training in modern (Horton & release technique), jazz, lyrical/contemporary, and musical theater. In her vigorous classical ballet background she studied the CeccheM discipline, under the direction of Rebecca Pfarrer, completing student exams grades one through six and her grade one teaching exam. In the fall of 2017, Lydia continued her dance journey on the collegiate level at Towson University, Maryland, as a Dance Performance and Choreography major. At Towson University she had the opportunity to train with professional artists including: Linda Denise Fisher-Harrell, Vincent Thomas, Tracy Burton-Hooper, Catherine Horta Hayden, Runqiao & Erin Du. During her time at Towson University she found a passion for learning through the somatics’ lens of dance through her scientific basis of analyses of movement sequence, which was led by Nancy Wanich- Romita. Guided by Malcom Shute, Nicole MarNnell, and Susan Mann she discovered that she loved creating works through the composition sequence. Lydia has created and had works performed in Towson Universities’ annual department shows such as Inertia, Dance Major Performance Project, and her class senior thesis show Un-shielded. She also performed multiple times in these annual shows as well as the re-staging of Napoli, and an original work by Linda Denise Fisher-Harrell, All That I Know Is…, in the Towson University’s Dance Company Performance. Lydia graduated Cum Laude with her B.F.A. in Spring 2020. In Fall 2020, she began teaching ballet and lyrical at Italia Performing Arts in Winchester, VA, as well as teaching at the Pediatric Movement Center Kidmotion program in Hagerstown, Md. She is currently working her way through the USA gymnastics teacher certification, starting a USA special Olympics gymnastic team at PMC, as well as preparing for her graduate program in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a certification in Dance Movement therapy, which she will begin in Summer 2021.
Annabella Parente
Substitute
Annabella is a sophomore in college studying basic mental health counseling. Ever since she was small, Annabella has had a great love of helping others and dancing around her dining room. Annabella started her dance training at Italia Performing Arts where she met Lorenza Kirk and Eva Zitterkob-Hoke. Both wonderful ladies pushed and encouraged Annabella to be the best she could be, to be creative, to learn as much as possible and how to share her knowledge with others. She began assistant teaching at age thirteen and teaching on her own at age sixteen. She has taught ballet, swing dancing, and musical theater to ages ranging from 3-25 yrs. Annabella choreographed her first of three shows (A Walk Down Broadway) at age sixteen, choreographing 8 dances in 8 weeks with 25 students who had never danced before. Working with children coming from all different types of backgrounds proved to Annabella that dance is not just for those wishing to perform on a stage in New York or Europe. Dance is a way to express one’s self and to have fun doing it. Annabella hopes to one day use her knowledge of both dance and mental health to teach dance as a form of communication to special needs students and as a form of therapy for patients with mental trauma.
