Meet Hannah Shihdanian
Founder/Director of HDC
Born and raised in the Boston Area, Hannah has a BA in Theatre from the University of Vermont. She has performed professionally with the American Repertory Theater, Greater Boston Stage Company, The Umbrella Stage Company, Reagle Music Theatre, Hackmatack Playhouse and others.
She has worked as a Choreographer both for Adult and Children's Theatres in the Boston Area, as well as Texas. Hannah is licensed in Zumba, Zumba Toning and Aqua Zumba, and is a Certified Barre and Schwinn Cycling Instructor. She has taught Group Ex since 2010 for the Greater Boston YMCA's, Equinox, Harvard University, Healthworks, Gold's Gym, and others.
Hannah believes that dance and fitness are essential to living a happy and healthy life, no matter what your experience or limitations are! She is passionate about advocating for the BLM, LGBTQ+ rights, and rights for women.
She currently resides in Watertown, MA with her daughter Bella, sons Jaime and Bear, and her husband Aidan.
Stephanie Klemons
Yoga Instructor
.jpeg)
Lotus Flow™️ Yoga
*on maternity leave!
Stephanie is a 200hr Certified Yoga Instructor specializing in Lotus Flow™️, and pre-natal vinyasa yoga. Additionally, she is an award-winning performer, choreographer and director who has worked on the pre-Broadway and Broadway productions of HAMILTON, IN THE HEIGHTS, BRING IT ON and IF/THEN. She sang on the original cast albums of three out of four of those shows and got to perform in the now infamous Tony performance with Hamilton as they performed Yorktown sans guns as a statement against gun violence. Her body of work can be seen currently on Broadway and around the world as the Associate and Supervising Choreographer of the smash hit HAMILTON. Commercially she choreographed content for Victoria’s Secret, Vogue, Sesame Street, the new Netflix Series THE HUNT, and was the choreographer behind the viral “Time of Our Lives” Super Bowl commercial featuring Eli Manning and Odell Beckham. Activism and philanthropy is hugely important and Stephanie donates 50% of all profit from her job as a Yoga Instructor to charity. Of all she has done, Stephanie is most proud of her Non-Profit, started ten years ago, which connects kids facing life-threatening and terminal Illness with artists to collaborate on a art, dance and music projects, and is always looking for ways to give back.
More info www.StephanieKlemons.com
Ali Gingras
Zumba Instructor
Zumba
Mondays at 6:00pm EST
Born and raised on Long Island, Ali began dancing at the age of three at the Jan Martin Dance Studio in Huntington, NY and has not stopped moving since. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Vermont. There she was a member of the Catamount Dance Crew and also minored in dance where she had the opportunity to dance on tour in both New England and Nebraska. After taking some time off from dance, Ali started teaching dance at Studio 3 in 2010 and started coaching the South Burlington High School Dance team in 2015. Ali became a licensed ZUMBA® instructor in July 2018. She is very energetic and excited to share her love of ZUMBA® Fitness with you.
Benedicta Sowah
African Dance
Cassandra Tavaras
Zumba Instructor
Zumba
Sunday's at 11am EST
* This class is "pay what you can"
Cassandra Tavaras started taking Zumba classes in 2009 and instantly became hooked on the diverse rhythms and the combination of dance and fitness. She became a Licensed Zumba Fitness Instructor in 2016. One of her favorite things about Zumba is learning about and adding choreography with new rhythms and unique fusions that really separate Zumba from other fitness formats. Cassandra loves to create a fun and engaging experience for all participants, and loves to let go and let loose in class-Zumba is truly a great escape AND a wonderful workout! Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Cassandra taught live Zumba and Zumba Gold classes in the Greater Boston area.
African Dance
Benedicta Naa Adjeley Sowah is a versatile dancer, singer and actress from Ghana. Raised in Teshie, a suburb of Accra the City of Ghana. She holds a master’s degree in Performance studies with Texas A&M University (2020), double major in Theatre and Dance (2017) from the School of Performing Arts at the University of Ghana. As an undergraduate student, Benedicta was trained as a dancer, actor, choreographer and worked with choreographers from Ghana, United States and Denmark. Also, as part of her senior project, she staged a piece titled “Osangoi and performed with companies/groups like the Tifali Dance company, Artistic vision, Abibigromma, Glomus, Heritage Africa and Noyam dance company. Her dance interest is in the area of African dance, Ghanaian popular dance and Contemporary African Dance. Benedicta loves to sing and believes in the philosophy that if you have not danced, you have not lived particularly if you have a rich culture as an African or a Ghanaian.