ABOUT US
Aspire Kinetic Arts was born out of the founders' love of dance and theatre education and a desire to create a space where students can receive excellent education in both.
Aspire Kinetic Arts' mission is to provide exceptional performing arts education that nurtures students of all ages, experience levels, and genders. We cultivate a supportive community that nurtures our students' aspirations, empathy, leadership, and passion. All students are welcome at Aspire.
Meet The Aspire Founders
Erin Crall Scott
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Director and Co-Founder
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(she/her)
Erin Crall Scott brings over a decade of experience as a dance educator and a career as a professional dancer to Aspire. Having been a Rehearsal Director, Production Manager, Senior Faculty member, and designer of her own curriculum, she is thrilled to be launching Aspire with John. As a choreographer, Erin's work has been performed in Seattle, New York, and Cincinnati.
Erin has trained in most of the codified ballet techniques taught in the world today. Erin’s introduction to ballet was Cecchetti, then she trained in the Balanchine style at Pacific Northwest Ballet School (PNBS). While at PNBS, Erin had the opportunity to study under Flemming Halby who trained at the Royal Danish Ballet with Bournonville technique. Having studied at Colorado Ballet for a summer at age 12, Erin was familiar with Vagonova technique. At 18, she was invited to attend the Hungarian National Dance Academy’s Ballet Summer intensive and was immersed in the Vagonova technique while there. She also had the opportunity to study privately with Ballet Masters from the Hungarian National Ballet. A couple years later, Erin returned to Hungary to train with the Hungarian National Ballet and had the opportunity to perform at their beautiful Opera House.
In addition to ballet, Erin spent 7 years studying Horton and Graham modern techniques with Sonia Dawkins at PNBS. She also studied Graham modern for 2 years and at various summer programs, and she learned from Jessica Lang at American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive in New York. Erin has 8 years of jazz training, including Fosse and Luigi styles; 8 years of tap training; years of character classes at summer programs and workshops; and Spanish Classical Dance training with Sara De Luis.
Teaching ballet to preschoolers, adults, and all ages in between requires Erin to be well versed in several different curriculums at once and keeps her learning. She draws on her background with various techniques to give her students a well-rounded and thorough ballet education. Erin believes that learning the history of the art form is important to appreciate the legacy of traditional works and to consciously work to build and support new work and new voices in ballet and dance today. In addition to ballet, Erin teaches modern, pointe, variations, contemporary, conditioning, and “Turns Progressions” class and coaches both children and adults privately. The student goals vary from winning competitions to gaining strength to earn promotion to the personal satisfaction of conquering troublesome technique. At Aspire, Erin’s vision is to cultivate strong, versatile dancers with technical prowess, artistic breadth, and creative aspirations.
John Crall Scott
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Theatre Program Director and Co-Founder
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(he/him)
John Crall Scott is so proud to be launching Aspire Kinetic Arts with his amazingly talented wife and partner, Erin. With 30 years of dance experience under his belt including Tap, Jazz, Ballet, Hip Hop, Contemporary, and Swing, John has a wide range of styles and techniques to offer students of all ages. As a choreographer, John has worked with K-12 school programs, youth theatre programs, and community and regional theatres throughout the area. Most recently John was tap choreographer for the virtual event Let Us Entertain You presented by Brave Hearts For Broadway featuring performances from frontline and essential workers to help support the Actors Fund. The event also featured many Broadway and Film actors including Annette Bening, Kristin Chenoweth, Bernadette Peters, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Billy Porter, and Bebe Neuwirth to name a few.
His training background includes 10 years of tap under Louise Fellows, Anthony Peters, and Cheryl Johnson, 10 years of ballet under Marco Carrabba learning Bournonville, Balanchine, and Vaganova, and 4 years of theatre and drama under Ruben Van Kempen and Beth Orme. Growing up, John was heavily influenced by his dance heroes, Gregory Hines and Gene Kelly, which is where he developed his style. John has had many wonderful opportunities to teach master classes, workshops, semester classes, and drop-ins at schools and dance studios including Cornish Collage of the Arts and Village Theatre's Kidstage.
Over the last 20 years, John has performed regularly with Village Theatre, working with choreographers such as Emmy award winner Al Blackstone (So You Think You Can Dance), and Seattle favorite and Gregory award winner Katy Tabb. He has had the privilege of performing Jerome Robbins’ original choreography in West Side Story and Michael Bennett and Bob Avian’s original choreography in A Chorus Line at The 5th Avenue Theatre. John has also performed with other companies such as Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Opera, and Seattle Shakespeare Company among others and has been directed under Tony Award winner Brian Yorkey.
Regionally, John has had the joy of playing his dream role of “Don Lockwood” in Singin’ In The Rain not just once but three times in the Pacific Northwest performing at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre in Idaho, Lakewood Center For The Arts in Portland Oregon, and Village Theatre in Issaquah Washington. Internationally, John has performed in the musical adaptation of The Wedding Banquet in Taiwan, Taipei, Tainan, and Singapore. Along with playing the leading man, John excels in character acting roles, including “LeFou” in Beauty and the Beast and “Bert” in Mary Poppins, and is versed in Vaudeville style physical comedy. His vision for Aspire Kinetic Arts' Theatre Program is to build a creative home for experienced performers and newcomers alike to foster artistic exploration, expression, and aspirations.