Teachers:
Lisa Valdes
Owner and Director
A professional dancer and choreographer, is a Las Vegas native. Lisa studied from early childhood at Fern Adair Conservatory Of The Arts in ballet, tap, jazz, and gymnastics. She was a competing member of the first Adair-Ettes gymnastics Team and won Nevada state champion in 1986, and was a highschool dance team member and cheerleader. Years later after raising her daughter she returned to her passion for the performing arts and retrained as an adult in all areas of dance, ballroom, acrobatics, cheerleading, salsa and belly dance. She won numerous of salsa competitions and performed professionally all over the Las Vegas Strip including providing entertainment for the famous magicians,Siegfreid and Roy. Among other accomplishments, Lisa directed the dance troupe “Latin Desert Girls” and was a member of the performing dance group “Sin City Salseros”. Lisa’s teaching experience with young children started with her own daughter. Wanting to share her talents with other youth, Lisa worked for her community teaching for a local recreation center where she was recognized by the director of the clark county recreation and parks. Lisa taught cheerleading, jazz, ballet,salsa and gymnastics to kids of all ages. Later she moved to Miami and trained in muti-style bellydance. In Miami she taught cheerleading, belly dance, salsa, and reggaeton (Spanish hip hop) for a culture arts program. Being that her classes were the most popular in the program, she managed over 200 kids and prepared them for 3 recitals a year. Aside from directing SMASH, she gives back to her community by volunteering and organizing lessons for at-risk youth, she is the founder of "Yessika Foundation" a nonprofit organization, works together with "Street Teens" and "Nevada homeless youth" to help keep kids off the streets and is an active member of SNHEP Southern Nevada Hispanic Employment Program. Lisa’s goal is to help young dancers achieve their dancing dreams, use their talents in the performing arts, and give kids a positive outlet through the expression of dance. She works hard to accomplish this through SMASH.
Kara Faith
Kara has been dancing for most of her life in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dancing is her passion and her love. She loves working with children and helping educate them through her strength in dance. She is technically trained in cheerleading, gymnastics, ballet, jazz, hip hop, and modern. Kara has trained at several studios such as Backstage in Las Vegas as well as The Edge and Millennium in Los Angeles. She also has dance training from the UNLV dance department. Kara has been teaching dance for 8 years. She was captain of her cheerleading squad in high school and went on to be head coach of 30 peewee cheerleaders in Norwalk California. Kara has performed for local productions including No Match at the Beach and Vaudeville Rocks and the Sanctuary. Kara has choreographed dances for local music artists in Las Vegas and Los Angeles for live performances and music videos. Kara also has a production assistant background in the entertainment industry working for people like Celine Dion, Madonna, Blue Man Group, and many others.
Most recently, Kara has been managing & teaching at a cultural and traditional dance studio called SMASH in the south part of Las Vegas since January 2006. Kara also choreographed a sold out show “Footloose” at the Las Vegas High School in February 2007, as well as currently choreographs for Las Vegas High School’s show choir “Spectrum.”
Lamont Wallace
Lamont Wallace was born in Anchorage, Alaska on October 6, 1983. Growing up in Alaska and California, he watched and studied amazing dancers such as Michael & Janet Jackson, James Brown, and classic artist and tap dancer Sammy Davis, Jr.
In high school, Lamont was part of a dancing group and performed at high schools and parties. After graduating, he joined up with the fledgling group, “Kold Karacters.” His hobbies are dancing, drawing and computers.
M. Amaris Fuller
Born, in New York City, Amaris has been dancing since 1992 and is trained in over 25 styles of dance including latin, tap, jazz, ballroom, lyrical, salsa, and swing. Since 1998, she has been competing all over the United States, winning various regional and national titles. In December of 2006 she was asked to come to Las Vegas to perform in Simply Ballroom at the Golden Nugget Hotel and Casino, and liked the city so much she decided to stay. Since then, she has performed at various casinos and community venues around Las Vegas, been asked to perform all over Southern California, has directed her own salsa performance company, and qualified to compete in the World Salsa Championships. She has been seen on ESPN, Discovery Health Network, and The David Letterman Show. She now teaches at SMASH – School of Modern Arts, Salsa, & Hip-Hop – to people of all ages. She is available for private and semi-private lessons in almost any style of dance.
Yessika Gamboa
Instructor
Singer, dancer, and actress. This young lady is a true triple threat. SMASH dance team Instructor teaching Jazz, Hiphop, and Modern. Yessika has been performing since the age of 4 and professionally singing since the age of 10. Her long list of performances and competitions include numerous Hispanic events, 4 years of kidz mania events, Harrahs Hotel Carnival Court, winner of Hawaiian tropic talent competition & Miss Glamour America, was a semi-finalist for American Idol 2006 in Seattle, Won HighSchool Liberty Idol, trained with Miami’s GPD elite singing, drama, and captain of the dance team, and was a main character in musical, "King Of Savannah" one of her many musical production shows. Yessika was a regular performer for the big brother big sister association where she was also invited to sing on south beach for 9-11 tribute, “God Bless America”. She was also featured singer and dancer in the city of Hialeah, FL 4th of July celebration for the mayor and was named 2005 student of the year for her outstanding talents. Yessika now is working on her original album and performs locally with local band "Volume I"
