The Robin Dawn Academy Holiday Showcase 2025 takes place at the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall on Monday, December 15. Academy dancers ages 3\u201318 will light up the stage with high-energy routines in every style \u2014 ballet, jazz, hip hop, and more \u2014 set to favorite holiday hits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have close to 400 students in the Christmas show this coming Monday,\u201d said Robin Dawn Ryan. \u201cIt\u2019s a very variety-type show. It’s a way for our parents and the community to see what the kids have been doing since August in their classes.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Robin Dawn Dance Academy<\/p>\n
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Robin Dawn Dance Academy<\/p>\n
Robin Dawn Ryan<\/p>\n
The Academy has been staging its holiday show since its inception 51 years ago. It moved the annual holiday performance to the Barbara B. Mann Performing Arts Hall two years ago so that its 400 students can all perform on the same night.<\/p>\n
Not all 400 students are onstage at once.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are all different numbers,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cWe have tap, jazz, ballet, hip-hop, acro, lyrical and contemporary – a little bit of everything for everyone to enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each dance number is set to Christmas music, with that discipline\u2019s instructor providing the choreography for the routine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ages are as young as two-and-a-half and as old as 18,” she said.<\/p>\n
Ryan teaches jazz, so she chose the music and created the choreography for her junior jazz and high school jazz classes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy little kids are dancing to a Gaga song, \u2018Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,\u201d Ryan shared. \u201cI didn’t know Lady Gaga sang it, and I’ve never used it before. But I look for songs that I haven’t used over the past 51 years, which is very hard to do. So, they’re doing that song. It’s quite fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jordan Hahn handled the music and choreography for the hip-hop numbers in the show.<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Robin Dawn Dance Academy<\/p>\n
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Robin Dawn Dance Academy <\/p>\n
Jordan Hahn handled the music and choreography for the hip-hop numbers in the show.<\/p>\n
Hahn has been a part of the Robin Dawn dance family since the age of 3 and won numerous awards as part of the Academy\u2019s competition team. She then attended Troy University as a dance major. After spending the last five months training in New York City at the Broadway Dance Center\u2019s Professional Semester program, she is back home to further her choreography and teaching career under Robin Dawn.<\/p>\n
Hahn\u2019s credits include performing as a backup dancer in two music videos with Elliot Divorin, as a backup dancer for a German pop singer, and in collaboration with well-known choreographers like Marinda Davis, Mandy Moore, Mia Micheals and Nijawwon Matthews. She has also choreographed multiple musicals in Southwest Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe’s got a real flair for that,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cThe audience really loves hip-hop, but then again, they love it all.\u201d<\/p>\n
The tap numbers in \u201cHoliday Showcase 2025\u201d were choreographed by Jennifer Pertner and Charity Molloy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe audience might be seeing a sleigh ride in there for tap,\u201d Ryan teased. \u201cWe love our tap at our studio.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Robin Dawn Academy<\/p>\n
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Robin Dawn Academy<\/p>\n
Robin Dawn Dance instructor Jennifer Pertner.<\/p>\n
Pertner was born and raised in Cape Coral. She began dancing with Robin Dawn when she was 3-years-old and has taught with Ryan since 1993. She choreographs and instructs the Petite Legends and Spotlights Competition Teams. Pertner graduated from Florida Gulf Coast University with a bachelor\u2019s degree in Elementary Education. She has won numerous choreography awards, while her students have been acknowledged with many high point awards in regional and national competitions.<\/p>\n
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Courtesy of Robin Dawn Academy<\/p>\n
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Robin Dawn Academy<\/p>\n
Robin Dawn Academy Instructor Charity Molloy.<\/p>\n
Molloy, too, began her dance training at the age of three. She predominately trained under the direction of Kim Hall and Amy Rhoda-Taylor. Additionally, she took classes from dance legends such as Jackie Sleight, Frank Hatchett, Roland Dupree, Joe Tremaine, and Mia Michaels. She has been teaching dance for 26 years in the genres of tap, jazz, musical theater, ballet, lyrical, contemporary, acrobatics, and pre-school combination classes. She has choreographed as part of a studio as well as free-lance for individuals for competitions, auditions, performances, and beauty pageants as well as for theater companies, middle school and high school dance teams and show choirs. Molloy taught at the Heidelberg School of the Arts in Germany for three years and was the director of the tap and jazz programs there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, all our teachers work together and put their numbers together for the show,\u201d Ryan said. \u201cOur kids are very well-rounded. Most of them take a little bit of everything. They’re not just one style, so they’re very good at that.”<\/p>\n
Over its 51-year tenure as Cape Coral\u2019s oldest dance academy, Robin Dawn Ryan students have achieved success at the high school, collegiate and professional level, with a number of alumni working on Broadway and Off Broadway, in television and on cruise ships. Several have opened their own dance studios. Many \\teach dance themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just keep going and bringing more students in because if that’s their dream to be a professional dancer. We want to point them in the right direction,\u201d said Ryan.<\/p>\n
Ryan is also in high demand outside the Academy. She is currently directing \u201cA Christmas Carol\u201d at Fort Myers Theatre, where she serves as resident director\/choreographer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m also choreographing \u2018Legally Blonde\u2019 at Canterbury and I\u2019ll be directing and choreographing \u2018Little Mermaid\u2019 at Bishop Verot High School in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
You can view Robin Dawn Ryan\u2019s bio and credits here<\/a>.<\/p>\n