Kira Bartholomew (she/her) is a dancer, performer, artist, choreographer, educator, and technician in the dance genre of “technical jazz.” Kira is a Southern California native, originally from Rancho Santa Margarita, CA.

She started dancing at the age of three, and at six years old, she started training and competing competitively on the dance competition team at her home studio. For 12 years up until she graduated high school, Kira has trained at her home studio, South County Dance Company, training in all styles of dance, including ballet, jazz, contemporary, hip hop, tap, and acrobatics.

During her time competing and dancing at South County Dance Company, she has performed at The Kidz Choreographer’s Carnival under the direction of Jerome Alexander in 2017 and was a featured guest artist and performer at the San Juan Hills High School Fusion Shows in 2018 and 2019, as well as the HALO Dance For Autism Show in January of 2020. At South County, Kira started assisting with the younger students in dance classes since she was nine years old and has had the opportunity to assist Marlena Bartocci at the DanceAtak Convention in Long Beach, CA, in 2019, and also queued lighting for Nicole Hagen’s piece “Equivocal Synchronicity,” at the McCallum Choreography Festival in Palm Desert, CA. Since the age of 15, Kira has been a dance instructor and choreographer at South County Dance, teaching classes to young dance students between the ages of 6-18.

After graduating from high school in 2021, Kira decided to continue pursuing her love of dance in college. This May, she will be graduating from Chapman University with a BFA in Dance Performance degree and a minor in Psychology. While at Chapman, she has trained with and performed works by renowned choreographers such as Kayla Kalbfleisch, Ido Tadmor, Wilson Mendieta, Laurie Sefton, Matt Cady, and Alexander Chung. Kira was also a four-year member of the Chapman University Dance Team, where she served as Co-Vice President of the team during the 2023-2024 school year and Co-President of the team her senior year, leading the team to its 16th consecutive National Championship title at USA Nationals in Anaheim, CA. Also at Chapman, Kira has had the opportunity to be a part of numerous faculty and student-choreographed concert and commercial dance pieces throughout the many dance shows the dance program has over the course of each semester. Overall, the Chapman dance program has continued to foster Kira’s passion for dance and has prepared her well for a professional dance career.

After graduation, Kira plans to pursue both a commercial and concert dance career in Los Angeles, CA. Additionally, Kira plans to continue teaching dance and choreographing at her home dance studio and other local dance studios in the OC/LA area. She also plans to obtain her CorePower Yoga teaching certification to teach yoga sculpt classes to the OC/LA CorePower communities.          

Photo by Claire Imler @claireimlervisuals