Celebrating 30 years!
Miss Laura Coté (Director)
Miss Laura has been the owner/operator of Laura Cote School of Dance for 30 years. In addition, she teaches classes and is always finding new opportunities for her students to grow as dancers. She organizes trips to dance performances, master classes and summer camps.
Miss Gina Huber (Competition Director)
Miss Gina has been teaching dance for over 20 years. She received her B.S. in Dance from Illinois State University where she was the recipient of a dance scholarship. She studied and performed work with guest choreographers from prestigious modern dance companies including Martha Graham Dance Company and Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, was selected to perform a solo at American College Dance Festival and was awarded “Outstanding Dance Senior”. After graduating, Gina moved to the Chicago suburbs and began taking classes and performed at The Dance Center at Columbia College Chicago. She moved to southeast Michigan, began teaching, and continued studying dance at Dance Gallery Studio in Ann Arbor, MI directed by Peter Sparling, a principal dancer from Martha Graham Dance Company. She was exposed to choreographing for dance competitions in 2003 and her students and choreography have won numerous awards including top overall, choreography, technical excellence and most entertaining. She has been teaching for Laura Coté School of Dance since 2007 and looks forward to continue sharing her love of dance with the students and seeing their passion grow!
Miss Jessica Huber
Jessica Huber has been dancing since the age of 3. Originally from Michigan, Jessica moved to Illinois in 2007 and began dancing at Laura Coté School of Dance at the age of 9. She has attended summer dance intensives on scholarship at Inaside Chicago Dance Summer Intensive, Ballet Lab Chicago, Dancewerks, and Fuzion Dance Camp. She has also attended the Lou Conte Teen Intensive, Visceral Dance Center and Gus Giordano Dance to further her training. She was a competitive dancer for 13 years and also performed in several seasons of The Nutcracker while living in Michigan. Along with competing, she performed with Midwest Dance Collective, a pre-professional dance company, in Barrington, IL for 4 years. Jessica has had the opportunity to perform works on stage and featured parts from guest choreographers with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, Giordano Dance Chicago, River North Dance Chicago and Inaside Chicago Dance. She has performed live with the Elgin Symphony Orchestra in their Magical Holiday Concert for several seasons. She has won numerous Overall First Place Awards, Title Awards, Scholarships and Special Awards such as Most Entertaining, Highest Scoring Routine and Excellence in Dance for her competitive solo performances. Jessica attended Point Park University in Pittsburgh, PA and had the privilege of performing works set by Stefanie Batten Bland, John Heginbothom and Keisha Lalama. Jessica is focusing on choreography and has won numerous Choreography Awards, Overall Awards and Special Judges’ Awards for her dances at LCSD. Jessica’s passion is to perform, choreograph and teach and feels blessed to be able to share her love of dance with others.
Miss Lilly Morris
Lilly Morris is from Spring Grove, Illinois and has danced with Illinois Dance Conservatory, as well as, with Illinois Youth Dance Theatre for thirteen years. She has performed many leading roles including Clara, Snow Queen and Dew Drop Fairy in The Nutcracker and Luna in Alyce Keaggy-Brinkmann’s, The Little Mermaid. Beginning at age 10, Lilly attended Regional Dance America’s dance festival and competed in various international ballet competitions, such as, Youth America Grand Prix, American Dance Competition, and World Ballet Competition, placing 2nd, 3rd, and 4th through the years and qualifying for Youth American Grand Prix’s finals in New York City. She was awarded many scholarship offers for Summer Intensives and attended Milwaukee Ballet’s. She is now continuing her career as a teacher and choreographer and is excited to share her ballet knowledge and experience with her students.
Miss Jen O'Grady
Jen O’Grady began dancing at the age of three at Jeri Barrington school of Ballet in Chicago. After moving to Lake County, IL she began dancing competitively at the age of ten and received many awards regionally and nationally for group performances and as a soloist in ballet, tap, jazz and lyrical dance styles. Miss Jen furthered her ballet training at Judith Svalender School of Ballet as well as at The Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy.
Jen was a member of the Waukegan Community Players and performed in a variety of plays and musicals including “A Chorus Line,” “West Side Story,” “Anything Goes” and performed in multiple seasonal productions of “Scrooge.”
She was accepted into the BFA Dance Program at the University of Minnesota where she studied Dance for 2 years before deciding to become a Speech-Language Pathologist.
Jen was a member of the Eastern Illinois University Pink Panthers dance team and had opportunities to perform at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Soldier Field for Chicago Bears half-time performances as well on ESPN during March Madness 2001.
Miss Jen has coached the Devilettes Poms team, was sponsor for a Hip Hop performance group “Motion Sickness” and has choreographed for Show Choir auditions at Warren Township High School where she is a Speech Therapist. Miss Jen has taught ballet technique classes for gymnasts, choreographed gymnastics floor routines and coached/ choreographed for competitive cheerleading.
Miss Jen is thrilled to be working with all the wonderfully talented dancers at LCSD!
Laura Coté School of Dance 11346 & 11404 Fox River Rd. Wilmot, WI
Call (262) 745-8244 for Details