Meet the Hearts Behind the Mission
Rachel Fuchs-Payne | Founder & Teacher
Salt and Light Dance Studio was established in 2016 by Rachel Fuchs-Payne who wanted to create a faith-based dance school in Duluth. She has taught many different dance styles, worked with students with physical and cognitive disabilities, is passionate about teaching dance to people living with Parkinson's disease, and believes that dance is for everyone.
​Rachel has 17 years of classical ballet training with three years of professional dance experience. She has been teaching for a combined total of eleven years for students in the area, previously at The Minnesota Ballet and currently at Salt and Light Dance Studio. She is excited to teach the next generation of dancers!
Anneleise Huchthuasen
Teacher
Anneliese grew up in Duluth and started dance at the age of six. At seven, she started training in ballet at Salt and Light Dance Studio and has remained there ever since. She has also taken classes at UMD and Raise the Barre and has attended intensives by Reverent Rhythms, Magnum Opus Ballet, and Ballet Magnificat. Ballet has always been Anneliese’s favorite style, but she has also trained in contemporary and hip hop.
Anneliese fell in love with teaching dance when she first began volunteer teaching at Wings of Eagles Ballet Studio. At the age of seventeen she became an assistant teacher at Salt and Light Dance Studio and promoted to teaching her own classes after graduating high school. She finds joy in passing on knowledge to her students, helping them bridge the gap between the mental and the physical in dance, and cultivating friendships and mentorships with so many wonderful people through dance. She is so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to have her dream profession in a God honoring workplace!
Jenny Chladek
Teacher
Jenny grew up near Eau Claire, Wisconsin and has been dancing all her life.
She studied ballet, modern, jazz, tap, and hip hop at En Avant School of Dance for 12 years. She did competition dance for four years on her high school dance team, as well as led and choreographed for the team as the captain her senior year.
She continued dance with Attitudes Dance at the University of Minnesota Duluth and began taking classes with the Minnesota Ballet.
Jenny has performed and choreographed with "Dances on the Lakewalk" for three summers.
She is excited to have the opportunity to teach and explore dance at Salt and Light Dance Studio!
Allisun Zagar
Teacher
Allisun began dancing at a young age and she has never stopped. Growing up she did Irish dance and switched to different styles later on including jazz, ballet, and theatre dance. In Allisun’s teen years, she grew to lead dance warm ups as dance captain, assistant teach classes, and eventually taught her own classes once she was old enough.
She started studying college courses at the University of Minnesota Duluth minoring in dance. While attending, Allisun was cast in the traveling show of Carmen, performing at the DECC in Symphony Hall with LilaAnn Coates White as her dance director. She decided she wanted to major in dance, so she auditioned for the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Bachelor of Fine Arts dance program. Allisun continued her dance studies in technique, composition, performance, and intern teaching dance. Some of her favorite college memories would be the repertory with Black Label Movement–learning from Carl and Emily Flink, working with Shapiro & Smith Dance–learning from Joanie Smith, and Dance Revolutions: working with Toni Pierce-Sands, Wynn Fricke, Gerald Casel, and Erin Thompson.
After college, Allisun performed as a professional dancer in various shows and music videos, also teaching at a local studio. Allisun started Irish dancing again, in the summer of 2022 with Rince na Gréine. Since then, she has achieved Árdghrád level dancing, qualified for Worlds in Ireland, and started teaching. Allisun is currently working on her teacher training certification with CRN.
She is very excited to move and groove with everyone this fall/winter! Allisun thinks dance is truly for everyone and every body; we all move differently in the same space, that’s the beauty of dance! Outside of dance, Allisun is a competitive tournament chess player and is USCF rated.
Becca Ford
Teacher
Coming soon...
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