ABOUT OUR TEACHERS

At Rosedale Valley Dance, our teachers are more than instructors—they’re mentors, motivators, and passionate artists. With extensive training and experience in various dance styles, they bring expertise, creativity, and enthusiasm to every class. Committed to fostering a positive and supportive learning environment, our teachers help each dancer grow in skill, confidence, and love for dance.

Miss Arlene Cuff

is the owner and operator of Rosedale. Valley School of Dance and has been teaching for the past 38 years! She was born and raised in Vancouver, BC. where she began her dance training at the age of 5, starting with Ballet. Through the years, she studied Ballet, Tap, Acrobatics, extensively, then added Jazz and Polynesian in her teens. Growing up, her studio was part of the Canadian Dance Teacher’s Association and she received testing and medals through that syllabus. Arlene first taught in Vancouver in 1982 then opened her own studio in Surrey, BC the following year. She has now been teaching in Lacombe for 29 years! Arlene loves children, especially the young ones! Her own three children are grown up, and she now has SIX grandchildren! Her youngest child, Melanie, is a dancer as well and a teacher at the studio. Dance has always been Arlene’s passion. Sharing this love of dance has brought her much joy over these many years! 

​Miss Melanie (Cuff) Cox

has been dancing since the age of three. She danced with her mom’s studio through the years, training in Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Acrobatics and Polynesian as a youth. As a teenager, she continued to dance in Lacombe and branched out, as well, into competitive dance in Red Deer. She expanded her training to include Lyrical, Pointe Ballet and Hip Hop. She has attended many workshops and dance camps throughout B.C. and Alberta to further her education and knowledge of dance. Melanie is very creative, has wonderful fresh ideas and a flair for fashion, bringing her talents and enthusiasm to all her classes. She has been teaching at the studio for 18 years! Melanie also is the very busy mother of three! She has an 8 year old boy, and twin girls who are almost 6! As well as keeping up to them, Melanie runs a busy home-based hair salon and she teaches several classes of several genres! We are so grateful that she juggles it all to be such a big part of our studio.

Miss Kyra Douglas

is dynamic and passionate about her dance! She has danced all her growing-up years, the last 7 of them at RVSD! Skilled in all genres of dance taught at our studio, Kyra particularly loves and excels at Contemporary, which she will be teaching for her third season. Also, Kyra is scheduled to teach our preschool classes, as well as some of our combo ballet/tap and acro/jazz. And, new this year, Kyra will be helping with our newly implemented technique classes! Kyra is pleasant, patient, and peaceful - just a joy to be around - and a creative choreographer!  Good work, Kyra!

Miss Naomi Gaertner

grew up on a farm outside Tisdale, Saskatchewan with her 4 sisters. Her love of dance started early, as she would choreograph dance numbers for her sisters and friends to perform in school talent shows and at camp. She went on to train in hip hop, jazz, tap, ballet, modern, contemporary and more! Naomi has been in hip hop music videos and performed across Canada with a variety of dance teams. She also trained in New York City at Step Up Your Game with several hip hop legends! Naomi has a teaching degree but is currently a busy young stay-at-home mom, with her three young boys! She is high energy and approaches all that she does with boundless energy and enthusiasm. This is Naomi’s 9th season teaching with us! Since she has lots of experience and patience with boys, she will be teaching our Boy’s Hip Hop classes again this season! Naomi’s words: “To dance is to live!”

Miss Kyleigh Grovet

was born and raised in Lacombe and graduated from Lacombe Composite High School. She first came to our studio in 2008 and became very proficient in hip-hop, tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical and contemporary. She gained experience, as well, as a student helper for two years before taking on her own hip-hop class and, later, a jazz class. Kyleigh had been away at University for two years but we are excited that she is back and was available to teach for us last season! Kyleigh will be teaching one of our Teen Tap and Hip Hop classes this season, as well as our Kinder Hip Hop class. It’s gonna be awesome!

Miss Raina Bodnar

and her family moved to Lacombe from Saskatoon, where she grew up dancing. She has danced for 25 years, 20 of them in competitive Ukrainian Dance. Raina’s interest and experience in Ukrainian dance is vast – including dance camps, winning scholarships in competitions, and performing in major Ukrainian festivals. Other dance experience includes ballet, jazz, hip hop and musical theatre. A busy mother of two teenagers, we’re happy that Raina finds time to be back in the studio again! She returned to us after a couple of years away, so we are excited that she is back teaching our Musical Theatre classes again this year! Raina’s kind and caring personality, coupled with her love of children, makes her a perfect fit for our “Dance for the FUN of it” studio!