Ms. Ember

Ember Hopkins is a Dance Academy USA Alumni. She started dancing at the age of two, competed with the Production Company (DAUPC) from the ages of six to eighteen, and has been teaching dance since the age of sixteen. Ember has trained extensively in the genres of Ballet, Modern, Contemporary, Lyrical, Jazz, Tap, Pointe, Musical Theatre, and Hip Hop. She was also Dance Captain her Senior Year at Archbishop Mitty High School.

Ember graduated from The University Of California Irvine Claire Trevor School Of The Arts in 2020 and has a Bachelor Of Fine Arts in Dance Performance and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Choreography.

As a dancer she has had the opportunity to closely train with and perform works by Modern dance pioneers Lar Lubovitch and Donald Mckayle, among many others during her time at UCI. Ember was a member of Donald McKayle’s Etude Ensemble and had the opportunity to dance in works such as Death and Eros, Crossing The Rubicon, Shaker Life, Uprooted, and Bittersweet Farewell. Dancing with Lar Lubovitch she danced in the works Dvorak Serenade and North Star. She has also trained with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago as part of their Summer program. As a choreographer she has presented many original works both live and digitally in the genres of Contemporary, Modern, and Jazz.

Ember was a member of DTM2 Dance company where she both performed and choreographed works in Rome, Italy. She was also a member of 180° Reach Dance Company based in Southern California. Aside from dance, Ember is a 450 hour comprehensively certified Pilates Instructor and is The Pilates Manager at Equinox Palo Alto and San Mateo. She also teaches Pilates at Urban Body San Jose and is currently going through her certification to become an instructor in The GYROTONIC® Method.

She is excited to be back at DAU as the Director of Lyrical/Contemporary and a Production Company (DAUPC) staff member!