Instructor

Michelle Eiland began training in dance at the age of two at Fishback’s Dance Studio. She is trained in ballet, pointe, tap, jazz, modern, lyrical, contemporary, hip-hop, Celtic, Latin dance, and character movement. She performs, choreographs, teaches, and assists for many theatres and companies in town including Albuquerque Little Theatre, Musical Theatre Southwest, The Adobe Theatre, New Mexico Young Actors, Heartstrings Theatre Company, and Close Quarters.

You may have recently seen Michelle Eiland as Babette in Beauty and the Beast, Lady in Green in Singing in the Rain (Albuquerque Little Theatre), or Hunyak in Chicago (Musical Theatre Southwest). She also played Jane the Irish Maid in The Women at Adobe Theatre and loved being part of the 2019 NMBC’s Choreographers’ Collective and Alice in Wonderland.

In addition to performing, Michelle loves both teaching and learning and holds both a Bachelor’s and Master’s in Spanish, as well as a Dual License in Special and General Education, K-12. She teaches grades 8-12 Spanish at The Public Academy for Performing Arts (PAPA). She also has professional and academic experience using Portuguese and American Sign Language. She finds that dance often performs like language in terms of communication, identity, and community. She will often provide space for functional analyses of dance as language in class so as to support the development of intentional self-expression. Michelle is dedicated to accessible and diverse education in all forms and is honored to be part of such a devoted dance community here in The Land of Enchantment.