As the Owner and Artistic Director of Seven Hills Dance Studio, Ryan loves sharing her passion for movement with her students and the community. She directs all administrative and creative operations, teaches modern & contemporary dance, and choreographs for the Seven Hills Dance Company.
Ryan has taught and produced work in Virginia, North Carolina, DC, and Maryland. She was previously a Visiting Artist in Dance at Randolph College, an Adjunct Professor of Dance at the University of Lynchburg, an Adjunct Professor Dance at the University of Maryland, College-Park, a featured choreographer for Lynchburg Dance Connection’s Showcase, and former Board of Directors for ArtZone, Inc., a local non-profit dedicated to providing art programs for children,
She began dancing at the age of three in Harrisonburg, VA and spent the majority of her childhood at Forest Dance Academy under the direction of Sue Dail and the late Pam York. She taught modern and other master classes on the FDA faculty from 2003-2005. Ryan received her Master of Fine Arts in Dance with honors from the University of Maryland, College Park where she taught undergraduate courses in modern, jazz, and dance theory on the faculty for three years, co-chaired the student National Dance Education Organization, and advised the UnBound Dance Team.
As a scholarship student at James Madison University, Ryan graduated with the distinguished Dance Theatre Award as Outstanding Dance Student with a double Bachelors of Art in Theatre & Dance and Media Arts & Design. While at JMU, she received a scholarship to train at the American Dance Festival with John Jasperse, David Dorfman, Lisa Race, Doug Nielsen, Jeremy Nelson, and Linda Tarnay.
While performing with the Democracy Cell Project, the Great Expectations Campaign, the Maryland Dance Ensemble, the Associate Dance Ensemble, the Virginia Repertory Dance Company, and the Contemporary Dance Ensemble, Ryan worked with Joe Goode, Terry Creach, Ed Tyler, Nejla Yatkin, Gesel Mason, Dianne McIntyre, Daniel Nagrin, Shannon Hummel, Mark Taylor, Alice Howes, Starr Foster, Christalynn Wright, Shane O’Hara, and thompson & trammell, and performed at numerous venues including the American Collegiate Dance Festival, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts, Latimer-Shaeffer Theatre, and the Maryland National Choreographer’s Showcase.
Ryan also appeared in Dance Teacher Magazine in 2001. Her evening length outdoor site-specific piece and partnering film, Place(d), premiered in March 2008 at the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts. Critical Dance Magazine called it “remarkable,” “fresh…pure,” and “incredibly rich.” Ryan’s literary work of the same title was published in 2008. In coordinance with the John F. Kennedy Center, Ryan helped produce the international pre-professional ballet intensive with legendary ballerina Suzanne Farrell in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Ryan lives in Goode with her husband Brian, daughter Ashby, son Grant, and black lab Addi. Her life full of all kinds of art and all kinds of students all the time!