Bella Faculty
SAMANTHA PURDY
Artistic Director
Samantha Purdy grew up in beautiful Durango, Colorado and
began dancing at the age of 8. She studied in Durango and performed on a competitive team in the tap, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, hip hop and ballet styles. She studied under Frances Rosser Taylor, Toni McClanahan, and Dani Scarafiotti. In 2009 Dani began Bella Dance Studio in Durango, and Samantha joined Bella Dance Company. There, Samantha became enchanted with contemporary and modern styles and attended conventions and competitions all over the western United States. Her team attended conventions such as Nuvo, Jump, The Pulse, NYCDA, Starstruck, Hollywood Vibe, West Coast Dance Explosion, and many more. She won many awards competitively and trained vigorously for a total of 11 years.
Upon graduation from high school she decided to remain in
Durango, go to school at Fort Lewis College, and teach for Bella Dance Studio. After attending Fort Lewis college for one year and teaching at Bella, she decided to re-invest in her technical training. She was accepted to CSU in 2012 and has worked hand in hand with many professors there: Jane Slusarski- Harris, Chung-fu Chang, Carol Roderick, Sayaka Ruggles, Richard Wacko, Quen Chen, Judy Bejarano, and Lisa Morgan. In 2013, she was
accepted to the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts Pre-Professional Program and studied under Antonio Brown, Tammy Dyke, Erica Pujik, Robert Sutherland, and Linda Kent. Through the program she got to perform excerpts from Rodeo, and a Battleworks piece. She graduated from CSU in December of 2015.
Samantha is back in Durango after spending some time teaching and dancing professionally in Los Angeles.
It fills her heart with joy to be back in her home town, in her home studio, and inspire young dancers and awaken them to the gift of their own creativity and beauty.
Ahliya Harding
Teacher/Company Assistant
Skyhawk Tracey
Ahliya Harding was born and raised in Bayfield, Colorado, where she was involved in music, rhythm, and dance extracurriculars throughout her early years. At 15, she began formal training at Bella Dance Studio in ballet and technique classes, and at 17 she joined the competition team, competing in lyrical, contemporary, jazz, and hip hop styles throughout the Four Corners area. After taking a gap year, she continued her dance education at Hofstra University, spending two years focusing on ballet in the Cecchetti and Vaganova styles, as well as modern dance in the Taylor, Graham, and Horton techniques. During her time at Hofstra, she was also actively involved in the dance-major club specific MoVoM. Ahliya eventually transferred back to Fort Lewis College in the beautiful Durango, CO, where she joined Blackbird Dance Company to continue performing and explore choreographing her own works.
Skyhawk was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up dancing at cultural Pow-Wows from the age of 5. From there, he found his passion in hip hop and breakdancing where he trained extensively in the two styles. As a young adult, he was a staple in the Durango community for dance and creativity, performing in high school stage performances and talent shows, Durango Arts Center productions, and has been featured in the following films for dance: Break It Down and It's Called Inertia Youngin'. He was also cast in the film- Lewis & Clark: Great Journey West by the National History Museum. He has been featured in several hip hop music videos, and was named Seasonal Dance Athlete for Nike in 2015-16. He was on staff at Bella Dance Studio for 10 years as a resident teacher, and is thrilled to be back in the area to continue inspiring young dancers to believe in themselves and find their unique voice.
Megan Roberts
Guest Artist
PAUL BUSCH
Guest Artist
Megan started dancing when she was 12 in Napa, California at the well-renowned Academy of Danse. With natural talent, she began competing on the competition team just a couple years later at 14. She was thoroughly trained in all styles of dance; ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, and modern. She received a scholarship to attend Pulse Summer Intensive with world-renowned choreographers and dancers at 16, and attended master classes at Chapkis Dance in Fairfield, California throughout her training. She continued dancing in college at Santa Barbara City College and Colorado Mesa University. When she moved to Durango 7 years ago, she joined Dance Co-Motion at Fort Lewis College and has since performed and choreographed regularly for the organization. She has since met other amazing dancers in the Durango community and performs locally with Snowdown Follies, Secret Circus Society, Dance Co-Motion, Blackbird Dance Company and more. Dancing and performing have always been a part of who she is and she is excited to continue the dance journey as she teaches the youth the joys of dancing!
Paulio Sovari is a Romanian born, currently states-based photographer, dancer and teacher whose past engagements include graduating from the Juilliard School, dancing with Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and photographing and dancing for Staatsballett Berlin and Oper Graz. He currently frames and is developing his photographic archives from his tenure in Europe, whilst teaching ballet classes for the Dayton Ballet School. You can discover his work at PaulioSovari on IG and come autumn 2024 at his website, www.sovariphotography.com.
Paul is very excited to be returning to Bella Dance.
AUTUMN RYMERSON
HAILEE HORTON
Hailee Horton is a proud local, born and raised in La Plata County. She began dancing at the age of five and has since performed in numerous productions throughout the community. During high school, Hailee was a member of the Bayfield High School Wolverettes Dance Team from 2009 to 2011.
After graduating, she attended Colorado State University and later returned to La Plata County, where she joined the adult classes at Bella Dance Studio. Hailee now teaches children dance and has also been a key member of the Blackbird Dance Company, performing with the group every season since its founding.
TORI DAVIS
Tori started dancing at 4 yrs old at New Mexico Dance Academy. She joined the performance company there and would later move to Magnify Dance Center and then back to NMDA for a competition team. Tori trained mainly in ballet technique and even started pointe shoes very early in her childhood. Outside of ballet and 6 years of Cecchetti (an Italian technique of ballet), Tori also trained in jazz, contemporary, lyrical, hiphop, and modern (specifically the Horton technique). She performed multiple times at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque alongside competitions at Nuvo and a few others across the 13 years of dancing. She is currently studying Studio Art at Fort Lewis College specializing in the mediums in ink and pencil.
DANI SCARAFIOTTI-ROSADO
Originator/Creator/Guest Artist
Bella Dance Studio Inc. was opened January 5th, 2009 by Director Dani Scarafiotti-Rosado. Dani started dancing at the age of 6 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She trained extensively in jazz and ballet at Prince Ballet, Inc. At the age of 18 she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where she studied Dance with concentration on choreography at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. In 2000 Dani received her BA in Dance from UNLV.
Dani has received extensive training in ballet, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, modern and contemporary movement. She has studied under Endelesia Prince, Cathy Roe, Sam Watson, Louis Kavourous, the Erik Hawkins Company, Margot Mink Colbert, Ernesta Corvino, Victoria Dale, and Cathy Allen. She has performed with Prince State Ballet, the UNLV Peforming Ensemble, UNLV Dance Company, Studio 54 and the MGM Grand. She has traveled to Paris, France to perform with the Universal Dance Association and to Edinburgh, Scotland to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Dani has been teaching dance in Durango since 2002.
She began her teaching career in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1998. After graduating from UNLV she moved to Durango, Colorado where she began teaching ballet, jazz, hip hop and lyrical classes. Dani has received various awards and recognition for choreography on both regional and national levels. Her students have also received various awards on both the regional and national levels.