Water Street Dance Company

        Gina Kennedy began her dance training in ballet, tap and jazz at the former Take Five Dance Studio in Peoria, IL. She has also attended various master classes and conventions where she took classes from Gus Giordano, Joel Hall, Dan Karity, Chris Judd and Barry Youngblood to name a few. She has taught dance through out Central Illinois for over 20 years. She currently is the owner and artistic director for Water Street Dance Company in downtown Peoria where she teaches tap, jazz, hip-hop, musical theatre and competitive dance. Gina has won several choreography awards for her works in competitive dance from Showbiz National Talent Competition, Starquest Dance Competition and Dancers Competition and Applause Talent. Her choreography has been performed multiple times at the Chicago Bulls half-time and Walt Disney World. Gina’s competitive dance group has taken top over-all awards regionally and also nationally at Star Systems Talent Competition, Rainbow Dance Competition and Midwest Starz Dance Competition. Several of her students have gone on to dance at the college level and professionally. In 2003, she was awarded the YWCA Tazewell County’s Outstanding Arts Award for demonstrating achievement and leadership in the arts through her involvement in dance.

       Natalie Reames began dancing at the age of nine and danced competively for 5 years at Water Street. She has been an assistant and subsitute teacher at WSDC for 4 years. She now attends Bradley University where she is studying Business Administration and Management. Natalie will be beginning her sophomore year this fall where she is a member of the Bradley Bravettes Dance Team. Last spring Natalie took classes from SYTYCD's Mia Michaels, Wade Robson, Brian Friedman, Chris Judd, ABDC's Shane Sparks, and many others! She brought back with her amazing choreography to teach to the students at WSDC's Summer Intensive.

                                          Sarah Gschwend began dancing at the age of three and has been dancing competively with Gina throughout her career. She has been an assistant teacher at WSDC for 4 years and she is going on her second year as a Teacher. She graduated from Illinois Central College with an Associates in Art and Science and majored in Interior Design. She has taught art at Tremont grade school and has helped many people redesign their homes. Sarah is also a member and co-captain of the Peoria Pirates Dance team, the Black Pearls.  They perform for community events, football games, and do advertising to promote the Peoria Pirates. Recently, the Black Pearls Team captains went to Dallas, Texas to the Pro Dance workshop designed for NBA, AF2, NFL, and AFL teams. Sarah took classes from Darrin Henson, Shandon Kohlberg, John Peters, Tabitha D'umo and Napoleon D'umo. When Sarah isn't teaching dance at WSDC or practicing for the Pirates, she is in her home town of Pekin teaching dance classes to young students. She can't wait to start dancing with her students at WSDC and to teach them that dancing is so much fun.

Kirstyn Russell & Abbey Steger