Dance Theater West

Susan Silverman received her Bachelor's degree in liberal arts and completed a graduate program in dance and literature at the University of Arizona. Her early training and performing experience was in NYC and her collaboration with Frances Cohen began when Silverman danced in the Kadimah Dance Company. She is currently the director of DTW Classical Ballet Program and is the artistic director of Story Book Ballet Theater which collaborates in performance with Free Arts of AZ, Detour Company and Scottsdale Center for the Arts. She is the Dance Chair for the Greater Arizona Chapter of National Society of Arts and Letters and is a board member of Center Dance Ensemble. 

Frances Cohen received her degree in dance from Bennington College in Vermont. She was dance director of the Jewish Community Center in Tucson for 18 years. She helped create Arizona Dance Arts Alliance and co-founded the dance program at the University of Arizona. She began Wolf Trap in Arizona, placing performing artists in Head Start classrooms. She is the artistic director of Center Dance Ensemble, the resident modern dance company of the Herberger Theater Center. She was the recipient of the 1994 Arizona's Governor's Outstanding Artist Award.

Katie Hughes discovered dance at the early age of 5 and was fortunate enough to find Dance Theater West when she was 7 years old. There, she trained in ballet under the direction of her beloved friend and mentor, Susan Silverman. During her ten years with the studio and her six years with Storybook Ballet Theater, she performed lead roles in several ballets including "Coppelia," "Cinderella," "Sleeping Beauty" and Odette in "Swan Lake." After graduating from Arcadia High School in 2007, Katie has been attending Arizona State University working toward her degrees in both English Literature and in Film and Media Studies. Katie has been dancing with Center Dance Ensemble since 2009. 

LaTonya Penzer  began dancing at the age of two. She attended Oklahoma City University where she majored in Dance Performance and was a member of the prestigious American Spirit Dance Company. LaTonya continued her education at the University of Central Oklahoma for Dance Education and is classically trained in the Cecchetti Method of ballet. As an educator, she holds grade one through five teacher’s certificates with eighteen years teaching and choreography experience in all dance styles. She continues to work with dance studios, elementary schools, pageants and high school dance teams throughout the Midwest. As a performer, LaTonya has danced with Ballet of Oklahoma, Radio City Rockettes and Silvertree Productions. She has performed with CDE since 2014, where she also serves as Outreach Program Director and as Dancers’ Representative on the CDE Board of Directors. She is excited to continue to bring the lecture/demonstration Poetry in Motion, The ABC’s of Dance along with the newest show From Ballet to Beyoncé to children in schools throughout the Valley. To LaTonya, dance is the language of the soul. She believes it moves us to feel and experience something greater than ourselves and is blessed to share her love for dance to touch, motivate and inspire dancers and audiences alike