About Us

CO-DIRECTOR

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

Miss Julie grew up dancing recreationally as a child (ballet, tap, pointe). She was blessed to have wonderful teachers who instilled a love of dance into all of their students - those who were gifted in the art of dance and those who had to work a little harder. She now realizes what a treasure a teacher like that is.

Julie comes to TFPA with 30 years of experience working with children to build confidence and a positive self-image through the arts of dance and gymnastics. She has played many roles throughout the past 30+ years - from instructor to curriculum coordinator, studio director, to owning and operating a dance and gymnastics studio. Her latest passion is sharing her knowledge of child development and the arts to a new generation of dance instructors and studio leaders. Her focus in the classroom continues to be preschool age classes. Those are "her people." 

"Miss" Julie is thrilled to be a part of the TFPA family where the focus is on watching each individual soar as they face new challenges and learn not only how to take on new dance steps or acting roles, but acquire so many wonderful life skills along the way. TFPA holds fast to the morals, values, and beliefs that "Miss" Julie grew up with and desires for her own children to be immersed in.

When she is not in the studio, Julie enjoys spending time with her husband and three children. She is a homeschool mom and is very active in her church.  

CO-DIRECTOR

Miss Tara is the “Mama” of TFPA. She has a lengthy background in the arts, including theater experience throughout her school years, including college. She has performed, written, directed, and built sets for shows over the years. She is a published author and enjoys telling stories that share a lesson through finding the extraordinary in seemingly ordinary moments and things.  

One of the biggest lessons Miss Tara has learned is how much performing can change someone’s life. She has watched all three of her children and countless others be profoundly impacted by the arts, in all different ways—Auburn is an attorney, Taite is a dance teacher, and Kurt is finding his voice to use to help people who don’t normally have one.  

When growing up, Miss Tara’s parents impressed upon her the importance of being a good steward of what she had. That is one of the reasons that honoring the time and resources that families sacrifice to bring their children to the performing arts world is so important to her and all of TFPA. We all want to honor that and make the best use of the time to educate, guide, and help their students bring their dreams to reality. Miss Tara’s parents also taught the Golden Rule and made sure she and all of her siblings focused on others with compassion and offered encouragement and grace as often as possible. It is those ideals that are the backbone of TFPA’s philosophy and goal: Where Everyone Soars! 

Miss Tara is our go-to person for all things business, using her extensive management experience in the child education and retail arenas to help us become the guides we need to be to help our students soar to new heights on stage and off. Her education both under and post grad focused on families and supporting individuals as they grow to reach their full potential.  

When she isn’t at TFPA or cheering on one of her children, she finds joy at church with friends and family and at home hanging out with her favorite folks and four-legged menagerie. Her hobbies are reading, writing, watching movie trailers, and dreaming of things to create with her yarn stash. 

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

JUBILEE DIRECTOR

COMPETITION DIRECTOR

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

Miss Taite has been instilling the love of dance into students for the past four years and has been dancing for twelve years. She is an award-winning choreographer and dancer as a soloist, trio member, and small- and large-group member, and she firmly believes that dance is a team sport!  

Miss Taite sincerely enjoys watching each dancer shine, both in class and on stage. Seeing their excitement to come to class with their friends and the fun she has helping them learn new skills is what makes teaching her calling. It fills her with so much joy to see her students develop the same passion and love for dance that she has.  

In addition to dancing, Miss Taite has been involved in theatre as well as competitive swimming over the years.  She has also taken courses in performing and modeling, which gave her insight into the importance of building confidence in her students.  She believes that is her number one job.  If her student doesn’t feel confident in what he or she is learning, Miss Taite makes it her goal to meet them where they are in their perception and to encourage and guide them to feel assured in their abilities.  When Miss Taite was little, she was often heard saying (almost every day), “This is the BEST DAY EVER!” Miss Taite makes it her goal for her students to leave class each week feeling this very same kind of joy.  

Outside of acting and dancing (both in the studio and at home), Miss Taite enjoys having Pirates of the Caribbean movie marathons, waiting on Taylor Swift’s latest album announcements, and hanging out with her family and friends. Her favorite animal is her orange tabby named Jamie, who is pretty much spoiled rotten. 

ASCEND ACTING ACADEMY DIRECTOR

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

Mr. Will is TFPA's Ascend Acting Academy Director as well as one of our dance instructors. He has been involved in theater and dance for more than half of his life. He has danced both competitively and recreationally, receiving awards for his abilities. He was previously signed with Halo Models and Talent Group out of Savannah and has been on many trips to New York City to audition for Broadway shows, which has given him valuable experience in professionalism in the arts. His unique approach and perspective provide students with skills they will be able to use on and off stage.

 Mr. Will has taught dance for several years.  What his students enjoy the most about being in his classes is the joy and fun he brings to learning.  His creativity, both in choreographing and teaching dance as well as coaching acting, keeps his students invested and motivated.  The sound of his joy-filled laughter and his words of encouragement are heard often throughout a class.  Mr. Will’s love of the arts is infectious.  He builds on the dreams of the student and helps them bring them to life.

In addition to teaching and coaching, Mr. Will continues his own quest as a performer.  He has been involved in local theater for over a decade, most recently portraying Roger Sherman in Perry Players' production of 1776. 

When he isn't dancing, singing, acting, or saving the world virtually with a controller in his hand, Mr. Will enjoys spending time with his wife, Auburn and their little boy, Fisher!

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

Miss Jenny hails from Louisville, KY where she started studying dance at the age of four. By her middle school years, she was performing in competitive dance events, which she continued through high school graduation, winning several top awards in solos, duets, small, and large group performances. Her dance training and background includes jazz, Broadway and rhythm tap, lyrical, modern, street funk, and ballet. Miss Jenny has been taught by several award-winning dance instructors during her years at the Dance Designs Dance Complex in Kentucky. At the age of fifteen she began co-teaching at DDDC, where she continued to impress not only the DDDC staff, but clients of the Dance Complex as well. Her skills earned her the recognition of having a parent request a tap solo for their child, when Miss Jenny was just sixteen years old. She earned another amazing opportunity during her junior and senior years of high school where she performed for celebrities including: Janet & Latoya Jackson, Josh Groban, Slash, Larry King, George Straight, and many more, at the Barnstable-Brown Derby Gala, a celebrity A-list event during the Kentucky Derby festival. 

Miss Jenny continued dancing and teaching after high school and soon married her husband, Air Force officer Robert Fisher, recently retired. She continued teaching after moving to Tucson, AZ for military assignment, focusing on teaching jazz, tap, lyrical, ballet & tap kinderdance, for ages four through adult, with end of year performances each year. After four years in Tucson, Miss Jenny was blessed with a daughter, but continued to teach dance. Miss Jenny, then endured her husband’s one year deployment to Afghanistan, continuing to teach dance and even adding Zumba instructor to her background. 

Upon her husband’s return the Air Force moved them to Pensacola, FL where Miss Jenny taught Zumba on the Navy base for a year, until finding a home with Time to Shine Performing Arts in Pace, FL teaching jazz, tap, lyrical, tap & ballet kinderdance for ages four through high school, for an additional two years. During that time, she choregraphed and taught dance numbers for winter recitals, end of year recitals, competitive dance competitions and community events. In 2012 Miss Jenny was blessed with her second child, coming just after a dance recital in her first year of teaching with TTSPA. 

In 2014 Miss Jenny and her family moved to San Antonio, TX again courtesy of the Air Force, where she was blessed with her third child. Miss Jenny believes God has always had a hand in bringing dance studios to her because it took only one invite to a get-together, where she met a new friend whose daughter danced at a studio, which happened to need a tap teacher. Miss Jenny began her next dance teaching journey with award winning dance studio, Chrissy’s Dance Academy, where she was able to stay for two years and enjoyed teaching all the classes she had taught before! You ready...? Yes! Enter another move, this time back to Tucson, AZ where again God dropped another studio right into her lap. 

Her time with Danzone Dance Studio located in Vail, AZ is super memorable. Just after the winter recital, she attended her husband’s unit Christmas party where she won the best prize of the night, his surprise homecoming from a deployment. Unfortunately, near the end of their time there, during the spring, COVID-19 closed the studio, but she continued to teach her students through online classes. God provided yet again, and Miss Jenny discovered while preparing to move to Warner-Robins, that Academy of Dance was in need of an instructor, and she was able to do her interview via Zoom in her backyard! 

Miss Jenny says she’s always a little nervous stepping into new studios because each one is very different, kids’ personalities differ across the varying regions even in age groups. She finds it an amazing learning experience and finds it a blessing to have had the opportunity to teach so many kids across this 

great nation. At Academy of Dance, Miss Jenny spent her time teaching jazz and lyrical along with adult tap. After just one year with AOC, God told Miss Jenny she needed to focus on her family, as her oldest and middle child were struggling with their first year of school. Miss Jenny took a short break from teaching which gave her insight on what was troubling her two eldest. She became an advocate for them and was able to have them tested for Autism and ADHD and found out that they indeed are on the spectrum. Through therapy and medicine, Miss Jenny says her children have found balance in their lives and are doing amazingly now. She now knows she can step back into the dance teaching world with even more knowledge of neurodivergence and how it effects people differently. 

Miss Jenny is joyful to be teaching at Take Flight Performing Arts as she and her husband have set down roots in Middle Georgia, after his retirement from the Air Force in October of 2023. Miss Jenny brings us 18 years of dance training and 25 years teaching experience. 

When Miss Jenny isn’t teaching at the studio you can find her working out or teaching Aqua Fitness or Zumba at Max Fitness where she enjoys teaching an older population. She enjoys spending time with her kids when they come home from school and camping with her boys during Boy Scout family campouts. Her favorite activities besides working out is gardening and just hanging out with friends & family.

MARKETING DIRECTOR

PILOT CAMP & FLIGHT SCHOOL DIRECTOR

ASCEND ACTING ACADEMY CO-DIRECTOR

Miss Auburn is TFPA's Legal and Marketing Director, as well as the Director of Pilot Camp & Flight School. Auburn graduated from Mercer Law School, but she credits the performing arts with getting her to where she is today. Miss Auburn has also run a graphic design and lettering business she created during college.  

She has been involved in theater and dance, starting in preschool. Her dance education began in Georgia but continued in Japan with a Japanese teacher who taught classical ballet.  Over the years she has been in many school and summer theater productions and participated in Jazz Band as an oboe player.  After a brief stint in percussion, she found her love of music truly amplified playing the guitar.  Miss Auburn is our go to makeup person, as she has taken classes in makeup application, including applying makeup for performances. Her favorite performing arts experience was as Executive STUNT Chair at Wesleyan College, leading a group of 200 women in writing, directing, and performing original shows. It was in this capacity that Miss Auburn realized the impact and transferrable skills that theater can provide, no matter what a student's future plans are. 

Miss Auburn has worked with students of all ages as a mentor, coach, and teacher.  She loves being able to help and encourage younger students as they explore what their future in the arts will look like.  Her patience and imagination partnered with her drive to help others makes her the ideal coach for our younger theater students.  Miss Auburn is looking forward to sharing her passion for the arts with her acting students this year.  

When she isn't in the courtroom or the studio, Miss Auburn enjoys spending time with her husband, Will, her little boy Fisher, her siblings and other family, and her friends. Game nights are among her top ten favorite things.  In high school she worked as a barista at Bare Bulb Coffee, so not only does she drink lots of coffee, she also has strong opinions on what makes a good cup of coffee.  Her favorite hobby is reading a book while sipping a brown sugar shaken espresso.

ARISE CHORAL COMPANY DIRECTOR

ASCEND ACTING ACADEMY CO-DIRECTOR

FLIGHT SCHOOL CO-DIRECTOR

 Miss Emma has had a love for the performing arts from a young age. She began taking piano lessons at age seven and continued throughout high school. Along with piano she also enjoyed learning dance, violin, and theatre throughout her school years. Since then she has given private piano and violin lessons, organized Christmas productions for her church, taught various children’s and youth classes at her church, and has auditioned at Walt Disney World for a face character role. (Ask her why her husband calls her Cinderella ;) Nowadays you can usually find her homeschooling her two children (who are both students at TFPA), fulfilling her role as Pastor’s Wife/Women’s Ministry Lead at GracePointe Church, serving on the worship team as a lead vocal and keyboardist, or dreaming about her next Disney trip. She considers it a great privilege to be a part of the TFPA family and is honored to be able to pass her love for performing arts on to the next generation. 

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

PILOT CAMP & FLIGHT SCHOOL CO-DIRECTOR

ASCEND ACTING ACADEMY CO-DIRECTOR

Miss Harlie believes every child has a performer inside of them! Her goal as both a dance and acting instructor is to instill confidence in each student so they believe in themselves -- a gift she believes will keep on giving well into their adulthood. Miss Harlie is a recent graduate of Fullington Academy, where she participated in one act competition, literary competition, and was a cheerleader. In addition to her theatre experience, she has been dancing since she was small and loves to teach all ages! She plans to pursue a degree in education from Georgia Southwestern State University. Miss Harlie excels not only at sharing her love of dance and acting with her students, but knows how to make every one of them feel seen and celebrated. 

ARISE CHORAL COMPANY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

DANCE ASSISTANT

Miss Ashton was born in Ft. Worth, Texas but moved back and forth from Texas to Georgia.  In all the places she has lived, she always finds a way to enjoy the arts. She has been apart of many different facets of the arts, from singing in front of people at age 11 to performing many types of acting shows - she even won runner up “best actress” as a step-sister in Cinderella in high school. Miss Ashton enjoyed taking dance classes throughout her childhood and continues sharing her love of dance with people today! When she isn’t doing creative things such as dance/chorus she is enjoying being a wife, mom to two amazing girls, homeschooling and spending time with family and friends!

CLIENT EXPERIENCE COORDINATOR

PILOT CAMP FLIGHT ATTENDANT

DANCE INSTRUCTOR

Kurt’s job at TFPA is to make sure things are never boring. And, he takes this job very seriously. Whether it’s sneaking his Dale Earnhardt Funko pop back onto the coffee bar, assembling Miss Tara‘s latest Amazon purchase, cleaning and maintaining the studio, working as doorman, hanging in the living room keeping the conversation lively, or assisting in helping young actors find their voice in Pilot Camp Kurt brings joy and voice to every situation.

Kurt has been acting and dancing from a very young age and has won awards for his dancing ability. He genuinely feeds off a live audience and leaves it all on the stage with every performance. Watching him hone his skills and seeing a new desire to mentor to younger performers is a pleasure. 

When he’s not at “The Hangar,” Kurt enjoys hanging with his beloved cat Timmy (who may or may not have his own tutu), talking Fantasy Sports, attending youth group at his church, drinking good sweet tea, and chauffeuring anyone who will ride with him. (Remember he loves Dale)