Dance & Movement Exploration

At Aspen we have created a national model dance program. Our lead instructor teaches not only dance, but leadership, integrity, discipline and fun. Your student, no matter what their age, will experience dance through an alternative lens. Dancers will excel, non-dancers will gain confidence  and all students will collaborate and experience the performing process. Come and take a look, and follow us on Instagram!

Dance, Essentials, Movement, Aspen Academy, Elementary School, Middle School

The Mission of dance and movement exploration:

  • To instill confidence and build character.
  • To encourage freedom of expression in the performing arts.
  • To integrate whole body learning by providing students with a positive awareness of self and surroundings.
  • To emphasize artistic expression.
  • To encourage students to discover his/her their individual artistry.
  • To learn technical dance routines and help create the style, story and character of the pieces.
  • To have the opportunity to discover their own individual rhythm, nature and passions, that can be applied outside of a classroom.
  • Concepts - Mental strength and body awareness through Yoga and Pilates principals, physical strength and movement through improvisation, focus, coordination, control, flexibility, posture, endurance and stamina.

Follow Aspen Academy Dance and movement exploration on Instagram

Maya Pingle

Dance Instructor, Student Leadership & Entrepreneurship Coach

Ms. Pingle has over 25 years of instructional and performing experience in dance, choreography, and Pilates. Her teaching style and passions stem from her early years in India, lessons learned while extensively training and performing professionally as a child through adulthood, and raising her own children in this world today.

She studied diverse styles of dance in Chicago, studied Pilates as a tween and was a scholarship trainee at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. She went on to perform with ballet, modern, jazz, opera dance companies throughout the US, and as a long time choreographer and dancer with the Radio City Rockettes touring casts. She is grateful for awards such as: top 3 finalist in the Pilates Anytime NEXT Instructor competition; national high school senior ARTS awardee, and 1st place in Chicago for the National Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Pingle has performed in film, TV and commercials before settling in Denver, coaching Pilates, and teaching courses at Metro State University. She saw the importance of thoughtful movement for children when watching her twins grow, and created MDP Collective, an after school program at Aspen Academy. It offers a performance-style approach to traditional movement, focusing on life skills from the enlightening and learned experience of the stage.

Ms. Pingle is inspired by the Aspen community's sense of kindness, and her shared belief that there is more than one way to achieve greatness in learning.