MEET THE OWNERS
Miss Amber
Owner, Director, Instructor
Chad
Owner, Instructor, Office Manager
AMBER L. MARTIN
Amber Martin has been dancing for over 24 years, teaching for 19 and choreographing professionally for 14 years. Trained in tap, jazz, ballet, lyrical, hip hop, contemporary, musical theatre and pom, Amber started dancing at the age of 6 and began dancing at APDA when it opened the next year. She began competing at age 9 with tap and later jazz and lyrical and earned numerous high point awards and two national titles with the APDA competition team. In high school Amber was team captain and one of the choreographers for the Norwalk High School Dance Team. She was also a varsity cheerleader and captain as well as a member and choreographer for the Show Choir.
In college, Amber was awarded a scholarship and was chosen as captain of her collegiate competitive dance team at Grand View College (now University). Also at GVU Amber competed in Midwest Regional solo competition and won first overall and title with her solo in 2004. She has since gone back to GVU to teach classes and set choreography. Amber has also choreographed for many high school dance teams and show choirs locally.
Over the years many of the dances Amber has choreographed have won high point regional and national awards. She has also been recognized for her outstanding choreography at many regional and national competitions, winning more than 20 choreography awards in the past 6 years. Amber has traveled throughout the United States and had the opportunity to take classes from professionals such as Mandy Moore, Ray Leeper, Tabitha & Napolean, Malaya, Mia Micheals, Christina Woodard, and Jo Bolden. She has also furthered her training several times at EDGE in Los Angeles, the Dance Teacher Summit in New York, and various conventions around the country.
Miss Amber is a certified member of Dance Masters of Mid-America, Chapter #34 and has been fortunate to have several students win regional titles and compete nationally. Other students she has trained have gone on to dance on college dance teams, win titles and appear in commercials. Amber is also a rehearsal director for Iowa Dance Theatre's production of The Nutcracker at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines.
Amber says she feels lucky she gets to share her love and passion for dance with the students she gets to work with everyday. She strives to instill work ethic and a genuine love for dance and performing.
CHAD D. MARTIN
Chad Martin was never a dancer. He played football. However, he met a girl who changed his world and she was a dancer, so naturally he got roped in to helping backstage.
Fast forward 10 years and he and that girl (Miss Amber) are now married and are proud to be the owners of The Dance Avenue.
Chad attended Norwalk High School and went on to attend Central College in Pella with a football scholarship. Majoring in marketing and communications turned out to be a great fit with something that Chad always wanted to do, which was to own and run a business.
After many years of helping behind the scenes building and transporting props, and helping with recital, Chad has now moved on to instructing our tumbling classes. After attending tumbling and spotting classes on a trip to New York to the Dance Teacher Summit, Chad came back equipped with the knowlege to help train tumblers coupled with his passion for sports and teams. Chad has also earned his coaching authorization through the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners.
Besides being the office manager at TDA, Chad also coaches football for Norwalk High School. Chad loves everything Iowa Hawkeyes, hunting, fishing, lifting weights and of course spending time with Amber, Preston and Eva.
Chad says he is very excited to have the opportunity to teach, coach and mentor and he really enjoys working one-on-one with students helping them achieve their goals.