Grace Mims
Grace is so excited to be the next owner and director of Dance for Joy. She has been a Dance for Joy instructor for 9 seasons. She loves this studio, and she is dedicated to its vision and mission that Kit Rossi started. Dancing because we find joy in it and to bring joy to others is what makes this a very special place. Kit was one of Grace's teachers when she was a teenager and she has worked closely with her for almost a decade. Grace will maintain the "DNA" of Dance for Joy while also finding her footing as a leader. She has a heart for kids and ministry through the arts, and she has been teaching for over 12 years. She is committed to Dance for Joy being an affordable, loving, Jesus-filled environment that is accessible to everyone. Grace started ballet at the age of 3 with Lori Miller in Jacksonville. Later, she studied for six years at Shoshannah Arts where her love of dance grew to other styles such as modern and jazz. As a member of the Shoshannah Arts Dance Conservatory and Outreach Team, she traveled around Jacksonville and internationally to Montserrat and Scotland. Grace found a love and passion for children and the nations, and she firmly believes that dance can be positive and life changing. In 2012, Grace graduated with a BFA in Dance and Minor in Psychology from Jacksonville University. From 2012-2013, she spent a year overseas in the Philippines where she was a company dancer and teacher with BalletCenter Cebu under premier danseur Nicolas Pacaña and choreographer Gregory Aaron. In the Philippines, Grace had numerous performance opportunities in Romeo and Juliet and as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker. For the last 9 years, Grace has worked as a dance teacher and choreographer all over Jacksonville. She has also danced in numerous events around the city with Unforced Rhythms Dance Company and Selah Dance Ministries. Grace is certified in the Progressing Ballet Technique.
Elissa Srulevich
Elissa Srulevich has been dancing since the age of four, inspired by her father a former dancer. She began training at Buffa’s Dance Studio and the Virginia Ballet Company and performed with the Burke Civic Ballet in Northern Virginia. She attended Florida School of the Arts on a Presidential Scholarship and received her B.F.A. in dance from Belhaven University. She has performed leading roles in Swan Lake, Paquita, Sleeping Beauty and the Nutcracker.
Elissa was a company member with the Braided Light Dance Project, East Coast Ballet and Unforced Rhythms Dance Company. She is also a certified Pilates and Barre instructor and has taught dance and Pilates across the Jacksonville area.
Elissa feels blessed to share her love of dance with others.
Stacy Sulewski
Stacy was born and raised in Clearwater, Florida. Dance has always been a large part of her life. She took ballet all throughout her childhood, as well as, danced on her high school and college dance teams. After moving to Jacksonville, Stacy continued to take ballet classes as an adult. She enjoyed performing twice in the Community Nutcracker. In hopes to share her love of dance with others, she started to work with Dance for Joy in 2011. Stacy is our amazing administrator and we officially would be lost without her! Stacy and her husband, Jeremiah, have boy/girl twins - Jason & Christina.
Alexi Campbell
Alexis has been dancing since the age of 6 here in Jacksonville. After dancing at a few different studios she found Switzerland Dance School to be her home studio, where she eventually taught and fell in love with that aspect. She has been teaching dance for the last 15 years, 12 of those being at a studio her and her sister started and ran.
Dance & Ministry have always gone hand and hand for her, so, naturally her heart has always been to not only teach her students skills to be the best dancers they can be, but to empower them to use their movements to worship and use their God given talents through dance. This is why she has felt so at home bringing her own children to Dance for Joy, seeing as the teachers have shown these same values.
Katherine Schmelz
Katherine’s love for dance started when she was very little. She is trained in several different styles of dance but worship dance is her favorite. She danced at Shoshannah Arts for many years and it was at Shoshannah where she fell in love with dance ministry and teaching dance. With Shoshannah she went on several international and many local mission trips dancing and ministering through the arts, as well as teaching the 3-4 year old ballerinas. She attended Jacksonville University as a dance major for a short while until the Lord called her into Nursing. She also taught at Faithbridge Fine Arts Ministries. Katherine first started with Dance for Joy at the very beginning, assisting Kit Rossi in her classes. She then danced minimally for a while while working on her nursing career, but assisted in dance classes occasionally at Dance for Joy. In 2018 she attended Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in Redding, CA. While she was there the Lord opened more dancing opportunities and she learned more about worship and Prophetic dance and danced in the school and on missions trips. She took classes with the dance Pastor at Bethel, Saara Taina, and did a workshop with Bethel Conservatory of the Arts. In 2020 her and her family moved back to Jacksonville and Katherine brought back what she learned at Bethel and taught a worship dance class at her home church. In 2022 she returned to teaching and assisting at Dance for Joy.
Katherine loves teaching our dancers and also works an R.N. She has been married to her husband, Dan, since December 2010. They have a beautiful daughter, Sophie, who also dances at Dance for Joy.