Kaela Norwood

Kaela was born in Chicago, Il but spent most of her childhood living in the surrounding suburbs. She began dancing recreationally at the age of four at local studio. She then relocated to the Bay Area of California where she began to take dance to the next level. By twelve she moved back to the Midwest and was performing with youth companies all throughout the Chicagoland area at Leo's Fashion Shows, Taste of Chicago and many other venues. In high school she continued her training in dance as well as was member of her high school poms team and Orchesis.

Kaela recently graduated from Northern Illinois University with a BFA in Dance Performance. While there she studied styles like ballet, modern, and jazz intensely from amazing dance professionals like Judith Chitwood, Paula Frasz and Autumn Eckman. She performed every semester, and also received the privilege of dancing multiple solo roles in main stage faculty concerts. Kaela has performed works of Robert McKee, Brian Carey Chung, Autumn Eckman, Morgan Fogarty, and Paula Frasz during her collegiate career. She has been selected to perform works at American College Dance Festival two different years and attended their winter intensive at Alvin Ailey.

Kaela was also heavily involved behind the scenes and was a member of the dance department’s executive student board, her last year she was honored to be board president. She found a her love for choreographing during her time in school and created pieces for student shows every semester as well. During her time in college she began teaching at a local dance studio in Dekalb, as well as for her former high school's Oak Park and River Forest Poms Team. Kaela currently is a freelance dancer and teacher. She is dancing with Winifred Haun & Dancers, as well as working with a newly founded dance company, Meraki Dance Company. She recently finished a year of training on scholarship at the Lou Conte Dance Studio at Hubbard Street Dance Chicago where she studied under the highest qualified faculty like Claire Bataille, Lizzie Mackenzie, and many more.

Kaela also had the pleasure of being a scholarship dancer with Aerial Dance Chicago. Besides training, she continues to teach at many studios throughout the suburbs and work with local high schools dance teams. She has a strong passion for teaching and has plans on beginning a graduate program in dance education/choreography in the next coming years.

Kaela loves teaching and choreographing is grateful to share her passion with her others. She appreciates the discipline and maturity dance has taught her over the years and wants to pass that down to the next generation of young artists.