Miah & Spenser Thompson
Miah and Spenser have been teaching ballroom dance for over a decade, and they have experience teaching students of all ages. They have also utilized their platform to support charity programs and events.
Read more about it below!
Miah Thompson
Instructor Bio
Miah Thompson graduated from the University of Alabama in Birmingham in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. She has experience working with all ages, and she uses her psychological training to cater her teaching to the learning styles of her students.
While in college, Miah started teaching social dance through Curt n’ Wendy Dance in 2011. As a teacher trainee, Miah was always choreographing dance routines in her spare time. In 2012, Curt and Wendy noticed her passion for choreography, and hired her as a choreographer for their teen exhibition teams. In 2014, Curt encouraged her to start her own class. So, she created the company, Dueta Dance. She also started training under internationally certified competitive judge, Kim Smith, to learn how to train competitive dancers and improve her choreography skills. In 2018, Curt and Wendy Johnson passed their youth program to Miah and her husband Spenser Thompson, so that they could retire knowing that their program was in good hands.
Now, Miah teaches social dance, competitive ballroom dance, and choreographs showcase routines for all types of dancers. Her belief is that anyone can learn how to dance, as long as they have an instructor who believes in them. She uses that belief to motivate her students to excel in dance. Miah is also a firm believer in providing her students with opportunities to excel outside of just attending weekly lessons. So, she hosts events for her social dancers, takes her competitive dancers to competitions, brings her showcase students to nursing homes and charity events to perform, choreographs specialized routines for her wedding couples, and gives her teacher trainees opportunities to teach in her classes so they can practice in a safe space before going off on their own to teach.
Overall, Miah's main goals are 1) to ensure that her students can find success through whatever avenue of ballroom dance they want to explore, and 2) help her students realize how much they are truly capable of if they are given the guidance they need to succeed. "Everyone's journey is different, and there is no cookie cutter definition of success," says Miah, "If someone is able to achieve their personal goal, big or small, then I have done my job well."
Instructor Bio
Spenser Thompson
Spenser Thompson graduated from Auburn University in May of 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry. He started out his dancing career in 2001 at Curt and Wendy Johnson’s first homeschool youth ballroom dance class. Just like many other 11-year-old boys, he was very reluctant to join the class. However, after he tried it for a few weeks, he liked it a lot! In his teen years, Spenser also perused competitive training in Country Western dancing from Melissa Packer. However, he decided he preferred ballroom over country.
After just five years of dancing, he was teaching people how to dance at every opportunity he could! Curt and Wendy saw his passion for teaching, and started to host teacher training sessions for him and some of their other students who wanted to teach. Eventually, when Spenser proposed to another teacher trainee of theirs named Miah, Curt and Wendy decided that the two of them would be great candidates to take over their youth classes when they retire.
Just like Miah, Spenser loves giving back to the community. He works with her to put together dance
