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CLICK ON A STAFF PICTURE TO EMAIL THAT STAFF MEMBER! |
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John Neville started his cheerleading career as a high school cheerleader for two years before cheering at Oregon State University for four years, where he was captain of that team for the last two seasons. After graduating from Oregon State in 1996 he became an instructor for the United Spirit Association (USA) for ten years. Six of those years he was a head instructor teaching high school and college camps all across the West Coast from Washington, Oregon, California, Utah and Nevada. John was a high school French and Spanish teacher from 1997-2001 at Jesuit High School in Portland, Oregon where he coached the high school cheerleading team. He also coached pole vault for the track team as well as Football for the last season. During this time he started the first of two all star gyms as well as was a member of the Portland Trail Blazers stunt team. While in Oregon, John choreographed high school and colleges around the Pacific Northwest while judging local and National high school and collegiate cheer competitions. In 2001, John moved to Southern California and began coaching locally while still teaching summer camps for USA and was a member of the Los Angeles Clippers stunt team. In the spring of 2003, John and his wife, Heather, co-founded OC All Stars Cheer and Dance. Since then, John and Heather have become the sole owners of OC All Stars and are into the 5th season at OC. While coaching teams at OC John also teaches many tumbling classes for all levels and ages. John also judges nationally and speaks at cheerleading conferences across the country. |
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Heather Neville has over 22 years experience as a dancer. She is studio trained in ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, song/pon and tumbling. She has coached and choreographed competitive and recreational dance for over 10 years. She was a member of Long Beach State's nationally ranked dance team and she has 8 years experience as dance instructor with the United Spirit Association (USA) in the song/pom program and 5 years as a head instructor. She has choreographed for various high school and all star teams throughout California. From 2003-2007 her OC All Stars dance teams brought home over 30 National Titles as well as numerous 1st place finishes. She has helped coordinate half time shows for the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Clippers. She graduated from Long Beach State with a BA in Communications and a minor in Dance. As well as being an owner at OC All Stars she is the head song/dance coach at Mission High School. |
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Nelson de Dios began his cheerleading career while a Senior in High School in Northern California. He was quickly hired to be a part of the United Spirit Association's (USA) Instructional Staff shortly after graduating High School and began coaching at that time. He spent the next 6 years with USA as both a head instructor and a member of program development. While with USA Nelson helped produce and performed in numerous production events such as halftime shows for the NFL, NBA, Women's World Cup Soccer and the New Year's Day parade in Paris, France. In the spring of 2002 after a very successful inaugural season with the Motions All Stars, the Motions Cheerleading Gym became the first gym in San Jose to open its doors (there are now 7 different gyms in the San Jose area). Under Nelson's direction, Motions changed the face of cheerleading in the Southern Bay Area. Since then Nelson has helped the program win numerous awards as well as Regional, State and National competitions. His "Perfection before progression" and "Clean and Uniformed" style has helped his advanced level teams become some of the best in California. He was the only coach in the Bay Area to lead his team to a Full Paid Bid to the USASF Cheerleeading World's Competition two years in a row; doing so with his Large Coed Teams (2006 10th place, 2007 11th place). Only three other programs in California have done the same (POWER, California All Stars and the West Coast Mavericks). Nelson currently creates custom music for teams across the country as well as choreographs for several High School teams across the state. He also enjoys multi-media work having created promotional videos for cheergyms.com and OC as well as building websites. He created the current website for cheergyms.com and the new ocallstars.com website. Nelson brings to OC his creativity, a disciplined and uniformed style and look, a "perfection before progression" outlook as well as an incredibly strong work ethic. He is very excited to help make the OC Cheer and Dance program the most successful program in all of California! |
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Dana Fielding cheered in high school and went on to college on a swim scholarship at RPI, and then received the Vice Presidential nomination to the United States Air Force Academy. She ended up finishing her degree in Biology in San Francisco. She worked as a women's health nurse for 15 years and managed one of the largest women's health groups in the Bay Area. She has been involved in cheer for over 20 years between cheering, coaching and judging. Dana has coached all levels of cheer from minis to high school. She joined OC four years ago as a cheer parent and is going into her third season coaching at OC. |
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Danielle has numerous years of experience teaching and choreographing. She has been dancing for 25 years and has studied in all styles of dance. When she was 13 years old, she was chosen as a member of the Tremaine Dance Company where she trained with many world renowned choreographers in the entertainment industry. She had the opportunity to dance for various live events, videos, the movie Austin Powers, and the Royal Danish Ballet. Upon graduating from high school, she took over as the Songleading Head Coach at Mater Dei High School, winning many national titles and awards. During this period she was also a member of the United Spirit Association where she served as a head instructor and member of their program development staff. She is a graduate from UC Irvine and was the captain of their dance team for 3 years. Danielle worked at one of the top dance/choreography talent agencies in Hollywood, McDonald Selznick Associates. MSA represents some of the most talented working stage directors/choreographers in the business. Their clients have worked on some of the largest world tours, films, television shows, commercials and live events such as Michael Jackson's This Is It film, Britney Spears' Circus Tour, American Idol, the High School Musical franchise, and of course So You Think You Can Dance?! She has coached and choreographed for teams throughout the US including high school, college, semi-pro, and pro teams, including the San Diego Charger Girls and OC Gladiators. Currently she is the Songleading Coach at Tesoro High School for both the Varsity and JV teams. Danielle is very excited to be teaching technique classes and working with the competitive teams at OC All-Stars!
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Alex graduated from UCSB with a BA in communication studies and was a 4 year member (2 years captain) of the Nationally ranked UCSB Dance Team. She has coached and choreographed for several National Champion teams within the last 3 years. She coaches San Marcos High School to a USA National Championship in 2006 & 2007, Glendora High School USA Nationals 2nd place 2006, 1st place 2007 as well her team won the Innovative Choreography Award at NDA Nationals in Florida with the routine she choreographed. She is a former USA Instructor where she taught high school and college dance camps. She has choreographed for UCSB Cheer, UCSB Dance, Cal Lutheran University, 14k Jules Dance Academy in Carpinteria, San Marcos Cheer and many dance studios in Southern California. Her 14k Jules team took 1st in Hip Hop and 2nd in Jazz at National Dance competition. She is very excited to be a part of the OC All Stars Dance program! |
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Ernie Higuera started dancing early in his childhood. He has studied Jazz, Ballet, Tap, Lyrical, Salsa and Hip-Hop. Though well rounded in all types of dance, Hip-Hop is his passion. He danced at Studio Del Sol on their nationally ranked hip-hop team for 2 years where numerous national and regional awards were won. Ernie went on to choreograph all of the hip-hop routines for the competition teams as well as he was a hip-hop teacher for the recreational classes. Ernie left Studio Del Sol when he moved to L.A. where he began working at the nationally known Millennium Dance Complex. He assisted classes taught by well known choreographers such as Brian Friedman and Wade Robson. Ernie also takes classes taught by Shane Sparks, Wade Robson and Brian Friedman (seen on the hit show, "So You Think You Can Dance"). Ernie then moved to Orange County where he auditioned and made the competitive hip-hop team Team Millennia based out of Cal State Fullerton. The team competed against other colleges all over California and won many national titles. Ernie danced professionally at Disneyland where he performed in the smash hit "Block Party Bash" for 3 years. He has also performed in "the Electrical Parade" and the Christmas Parade. He has performed in events starring Ashanti, Arnold Scwarzenegger and Hilary Duff. Ernie is very excited to be back at OC All Stars! |
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Katie has been dancing for eight years where she is trained in jazz, hip-hop, ballet and salsa. She was on the nationally ranked Song Team at Tesoro High School. After competing with them for two years, Katie moved on to progress her dancing skills by taking classes at well-known studios such as Millennium and The Edge. She currently is attending Cal State Long Beach where she hopes to receive a Bachelor Degree in Fine Arts. She is very excited to be a part of the OC! |
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Lisa has over 15 years of dance experience including training in hip-hop, jazz, ballet, tap, lyrical and musical theater. She competed as a young dancer before she attended Tesoro High School where she was on the song team and captain for all four years. She graduated valedictorian from Tesoro High School and is currently on scholarship attending the University of California, Irvine as a sociology major. While in college she solely choreographed, as well as performed in the musicals Footloose and Saturday Night Fever for the yearly Greek Songfest. This is her 4th season with OC. |
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Alison has been involved in cheerleading for almost 10 years. She has competed on advanced level All Star teams for 6 years and has competed three times at the USASF Cheerleading Worlds, two years on a Large Coed team and one year on a International coed team. Before cheerleading Alison spent 10 years in competitive gymnastics having spent her last year training level 8. Alison is now in school to become a massage therapist and is in her first year with OC! |
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Andrea began her dance training at age 10 at Capistrano Valley Dance Center. Although she is primarily a classically trained ballet dancer, she has extensive training in modern, lyrical and jazz from such studios as Jimmy DeFore, Saddleback Dance Center and Pacific Coast Academy of Dance. Andrea has attended several Summer Intensives including American Ballet Theatre, Joffrey Ballet and Boston Ballet, where she was featured in such ballets as Firebird, Coppelia and Nutcracker. At age 16 Andrea began teacher training and started teaching pre-school aged children. She found a passion for teaching and attended several more training sessions for dance teachers through The Cecchetti Society of Dance. Along with her love for teaching, Andrea loves performing. From 2003 - 2006 Andrea was a member of Naked Feet modern company and performed in several community performances. Andrea was also elected president of Saddleback Dance Collective from 2003 - 2006. Andrea has combined her training, teaching and performance skills to develop many Nationally Award Winning dance teams. Andrea is always continuing her own training and brings her experiences into the classroom for her students. |
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 Erica Gill Cheer Coach, Tumbling Instructor |
Erica has been coaching with OC All Stars for 6 years. She has 16 years of cheerleading experience with 9 years as a coach. Erica cheered with Orange Crush and Cheer Empire and was captain of her Mission Viejo High School cheer team for 3 years. She also coached for the US Spiritleaders summer camp. Erica is currently studying to be a small animal vet at Long Beach. |
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 Kelly Vernon Hip-Hop and Ballet/Jazz Instructor |
Kelly is trained in various dance genres including ballet, hip-hop, jazz, salsa and african. She has been dancing and choreographing for fifteen years. Kelly has danced, coached and choreographed for seven high school, collegiate and private dance organizations throughout California. While attending Aliso Niguel high school, she danced on the Nationally ranked songleading competition team. In addition, she co-founded the hip hop dance troupe called Dance Appreciation. She was also a dancer and choreographer for the University of California, Berkeley dance team. She co-founded the university's hip-hop troupe called Dance Junta. Kelly also danced for the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warrior's dance teams. She choreographed for both of those teams as well as the NBA's Portland Trailblazers dance team. Kelly currently works for the United Spirit Association and has choreographed for their program development team for two years. In addition, she has been an instructor for their College/Professional Dance Camp for the past four years. She currently owns, operates and manages her own entertainmente production company called Vin'yet Productions. |
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 Michell Charnitski Office Manager |
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 Toby Vu Hip-Hop Instructor |
Toby Vu aka Tovu has been dancing in the community since he was 14. He started dancing with Dance Appreciation, a high school hip hop club at Aliso Niguel High School, and Urban Youth, a hip hop team based out of Cerritos. Tovu has also danced with different hip-hop dance groups such as Common Ground, Breed, Super Galactic Beat Manipulators, and Chill Factor crew. Just last year, Tovu was given the chance to coach for Dance Appreciation in their first year as a competitive co-ed hip hop group. He bring street, breaking and poppin and much more to the OC Hip-Hop teams and classes. OC is very excited to have Toby on staff! Along with teaching many of the hip-hop classes offered at OC, he will also be working with the Youth, Junior & Sr. Hip-Hop teams this year!
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 Chelsea Santos Tumbling Instructor |
I have
been cheering for about six years, three years on Tesoro's Varsity Team,
two years on the OC all stars level 5 Team, and this will be my second
year on Saddleback's cheer team. Go Gauchos! I am very active and love to
stay busy. Cheerleading has become a huge part of my life and I absolutely
love it. |
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 Shelley Smith Pre-School Tumbling |
Shelley has been dancing since the age of 7, where she strongly trained in ballet, jazz, lyrical, and hip-hop from Saddleback Dance Center to West Coast Dance Academy and Jimmy DeFore. During those years, she intensively competed in ballet, lyrical, and jazz. Prior to going on Pointe, she took intensives in Cecchetti, American Ballet, Russian Ballet, and was then certified by The Cecchetti Society of Dance. Shelley continued her training while attending Tesoro High School where she was on the Varsity Song Team for 4 years, and was awarded captain her senior year. She is currently attending Saddleback College minoring and performing in the dance department. She additionally continues to take from well-known dancers and choreographers such as, Donyelle Jones and Brandon Bryant. From 2008 - present, Shelley has been dedicated to Architecture Dance and Emotus Dance Company. With these companies, she has expanded her repertoire of dance through modern and contemporary. In various genres, she enjoys choreographing for shows and performances through Saddleback College and "The Next Level" Performing Arts. Shelley found her passion for teaching while working at The Tumble Center, teaching preschool gymnastics and dance for 2 years. After the Tumble Center closed, Shelley carried her passion for teaching to OC All-Stars.
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 Becky Taylor Front Office |
I am a student at Saddleback College, working towards transferring to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo for my business degree. I cheered for OC All Stars for 3 years while I was in high school. Some of my favorite memories come from that. In college, I coached the junior high cheer team at Saddleback Valley Christian School. I love going out with my friends and being spontaneous. My family means the world to me and I would do anything for them.
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 Heather Perkins Tumbling Instructor |
Heather is currently a student at Saddleback College. She is majoring in biology in order to pursue medical school and become a pediatrician. Heather has been cheering for eight years, along with training in dance and gymnastics since she was three. She cheered for The Thunder All Stars in Marietta, GA before moving back to California. During high school, Heather was captain of her football, basketball, and competition cheerleading squads. Heather has coached high school and middle school teams in all areas including tumbling, stunting and choreography. She was named a UCA All Star and NCA All American cheerleader throughout her high school years. Heather was also nominated to be a UCA instructor in the summer of 2008. She has received training from the Stingray All Stars and Georgia All Stars with her high school competition squad and is very excited to help grow the program at OC All Stars.
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 Charlee Eskew Tumbling Instructor
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Charlee is in her first year at Orange Coast College studying to be a high school health teacher and hopes to transfer to Long Beach for her degree. She was a cheerleader at American Cheer in Bakersfield for 10 years spending 6 of those years with their level 5 team. She also cheered at her high school, Liberty High School for all four years. |
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OC
CHEER AND DANCE |
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