Lynette Yorgason
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Lynette has been dancing since she was three and has been teaching dance for nearly ten years. She has always loved jazz music and percussion, so tap was often a favorite even though her dance studio didn't have much tap. Lynette graduated from BYU in 2012 with a degree in History Teaching. While at BYU she toured with the International Folk Dance Ensemble throughout the United States and Eastern Europe. At BYU she was able to get more tap experience as well as experience with other percussive dances. Currently Lynette teaches tap at Wasatch Arts Academy. For her day job, she teaches history and government at East High School in Salt Lake City, UT.
Amber Shepherd
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Amber was born in a small town in southern Illinois. She started dancing at the age of 3 and immediately fell in love with tap. Later in life she attended Brigham Young University where she performed and traveled with the IFDE for four years. During this time, her love for percussive footwork grew exponentially. She’s had the opportunity to teach at BYU as well as other local dance studios and continues to try and share the love of tap wherever she goes. She is so excited to be a part of this group and can’t wait to grow as an individual, a performer, and a community.
Stephanie Andersen
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From sunny SoCal, Stephanie moved to Provo, Utah to attend Brigham Young University. Despite her busy college life, she couldn't leave behind one of her biggest loves- tap dancing. She currently teaches tap at two studios, Studio K and Jolie Arts, and dances with two tap companies, Foot Poetry and Percussive Footwork Ensemble. When she isn't tap dancing, she spends her time wishing she were.
Carissa Moser
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Carissa graduated from BYU this past April with a degree in Dance. While at BYU, she danced with the International Folk Dance Ensemble for three years and was able to tour internationally to Asia and Europe.
Artistic Director - Jacob Madsen
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Jacob is from Tucson, AZ and started tapping when he was just a little boy. He graduated with a BA in Dance from Brigham Young University where he toured with the International Folk Dance Ensemble through several countries such as: Belgium, Switzerland, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Jacob is now adjunct faculty in the world area at BYU where he teaches tap, clogging, team classes, and is the rehearsal specialist for IFDE. Although he has a love for clogging, Canadian step dance, and Irish hard shoe, tap will always be the one closest to his heart. He has been dreaming of starting his own tap company for years and couldn’t have asked for better dancers for the first year of Percussive Footwork Ensemble!
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PC: @vela.photography
Adriana Cottle
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My name is Adriana and simply put, I love tap dance! I’m from Seattle, Washington, I have been tapping for 14 years, my favorite color is yellow, and I can't be more excited to join the Percussive Footwork Ensemble!
Mary Beth Johnson
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Mary Beth recently graduated from Brigham Young University with a B.A. in Dance. She is from Farmington Utah, where she grew up studying ballet, jazz, and contemporary styles. She performed for three years with the BYU International Folk Dance Ensemble, touring to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Belgium, Poland, and France. One of her favorite experiences at BYU was teaching the World Dance class. She recently received the National Folk Organization arts grant and traveled to Ukraine for two weeks to study Ukrainian dance with major folk dance ensembles there. Mary Beth continues to dance in a variety of groups, and also teaches dance to elementary students.
Zach Diamond
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Toe Jam aka Zach loves to tap dance. He started at the young age of 24 after his mom made him do something to increase is “coordination” and hasn’t regretted dedicating his life to this form of dance. When he isn’t busy creating beats (with his feet) sicker than Kanye’s, he attends dental school. The only thing in this world better than tap dance are teeth! Some say that after a long hard evening of tap practice he can be heard drilling peoples’ teeth the next morning to the beat of the combo he learned the night before.
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Zach grew up dancing but left it behind once entering high school to pursue other interests. While serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Hungary, Zach discovered his love for culture and rediscovered his love for dance which led him to join the International Folk Dance Ensemble while at BYU. This is where Zach was first exposed to tap and fell in love with it. He has had the opportunity to perform tap all over Europe, for people from all over the world.
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Zach graduated in 2016 from BYU with a degree in Neuroscience, and is currently in his third year of dental school at Roseman University College of Dental Medicine. . . .
P.S. people don’t really call him Toe Jam, but they should!
