Meet our Instructors

Meet North Coast Dance's talented instructors.

You can see which classes they are currently teaching by checking our current Class Schedule.

Linda Maxwell - Education Director, Director, Choreographer

Linda fell in love with dance and ballet at the age of 3 ½.  Her earlier training was at a private studio, supplemented by summer ballet programs. She has a BFA and MFA in Dance from UC Irvine.

Linda was program head and taught a variety of classes at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California, including Dance Appreciation, modern, ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, floor-barre, folklorico, performance skills and dance performance.

Currently, Linda teaches ballet, jazz and tap at Humboldt State University where she has taught for the past twelveyears.  Her work is seen regularly on the HSU Spring dance concerts.

In addition to her work at the college level, she has worked with civic ballet companies and had her works adjudicated on gala National Regional Ballet Festivals. She spent several years as John Travolta's private dance instructor.  She has choreographed musicals for various venues including PCPA, the American Melodrama Company and locally, the Ferndale Repertory Theater and the Cinco de Mayo Festival in Ferndale.  

Professionally, she has performed with Calpulli Danza Mexicana, a folklorico dance company in New York City.  In Humboldt County, in addition to Humboldt State, she has taught dance at College of the Redwoods, Ferndale Elementary and High School, and Studio of Dance Arts in Eureka. She is a certified floor-barre instructor.  

Linda considers herself to be a continuous student of dance, spending her summers studying dance in New York City.

Gina Grebe  - Associate Education Director, Choreographer

Gina Grebe has been working at North Coast Dance since 2011. She has a Bachelors in Dance Studies from Humboldt State University and has completed ABT’s National Teacher Training for Pre-Ballet through Level 3. In the last decade, she has taught various styles to all levels, choreographed and danced in dozens of NCD and community shows, directed Passport to Dance camps, and worked with the Humboldt County Office of Education to create the Schools to Dance outreach, and directed our Dance Along with Clara program for our youngest dancers. Gina is passionate about teaching and equipping other teachers to create the best possible learning environment for our dancers. And she loves working with Eliza.

Harmony Sorter - Company member, Choreographer

Harmony Sorter grew up in Arcata, California. In addition to studying classical ballet in Arcata, Harmony attended summer intensives at Pacific Northwest Ballet, Joffrey Ballet, Theodore Constant Dance Academy and spent one year dancing at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, Russia. She has had the privledge to dance leading roles in classical ballets such as Coppelia, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Nutcracker, Paquita and Swan Lake. Harmony joined San Francisco’s Bay Pointe Ballet as a corps de ballet member in 2015 where she performed roles in Peter Pan, In the Mood, Dracula, Nutcracker, and Contemporary works. She is excited for her new adventure here teaching and performing with the company at North Coast Dance.  

Heather Walker - Company Member, Choreographer

Heather started ballet classes at age 7 through a local parks and rec program after seeing a production of Nutcracker. Beginning at 10 she studied at a Cecchetti based school with Lucille McClure in Whittier until she was a senior in high school. Heather came back to ballet as an adult looking for an exercise routine and started dancing at NCD in the spring of 2001, and teaching in 2004. She has performed in every Nutcracker since 2001 (except 2005, due to an injury); roles have included Rat Queen and Mrs. Silberhaus multiple times, the Governess, Chinese Empress, and most recently the Head Baker. Other roles have included the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs in Jack and the Beanstalk, and Pluto in To Pluto and Back.

Although she continues to work full-time for the county, Heather's background as a camp counselor (10+ years) and in Early Childhood Education (8+ years) has been crucial to developing the Creative Movement classes and Passport to Dance camps. You can find her in the studio every Saturday morning, passing on her love of dance to young students, many of whom she has watched grow up and become assistants and teachers at NCD.

Jonny Wisan - Company member, Choreographer

Jonny’s love of movement began with his first Swing Dance lesson, at age 7. He later started classes at Trinity Ballet Academy where he learned Classical Ballet technique. In College Jonny earned his Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Dance from Humboldt State University. Currently he teaches Jazz, Contemporary, and Ballet at North Coast Dance, as well as dancing in the NCD Company. He is also a founding (and continuing) performer with Ballet Emmaus- Trinity Ballet’s resident company.

 

Clover Ladd - Company member, Choreographer

Clover has been dancing since she was 2 years old! She has enjoyed doing shows at NCD in roles like Rose Queen, Clara, Marzipan, and in corps of Flowers and Snow in Nutcracker, she has also been Snow White in the 2025 Spring show and Black Swan in the Zombie Ballet.
Clover started teaching Kinder ballet last year which she loved and will be teaching Creative Movement this coming year as well. She has choreographed in the past few Zombie Ballets and she choreographed Chinese Tea in the 2025 Nutcracker! She will continue choreographing and teaching in the future.

 

Ethan Ladd - Company member, Choreographer

Ethan started dancing when he was 14 years old and has spent the last 5 years with north coast dance as a company member and recent teacher. He is a student at Copenhagen Contemporary Dance where he studies Dance and French.  Ethan has performed various roles in the the Nutcracker,and many of our spring shows.  He has participated in summer intensives with TCDA, Royal Danish ballet, and Paris Marais Dance conservatory. 

 

Madisyn Wood - Company member, Choreographer

Madisyn Wood is 15 years old and has been dancing since she was three years old. She started at North Coast Dance (NCD) when she was eight. She has attended summer intensives such as Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Rock School for Dance and John Cranko Schule where she has had the privilege of studying both, Balanchine, and Vaganova ballet styles. She also has attended dance competitions such as Youth American Grande Prix and California Dance Classics under the coaching of Harmony Sorter. Since joining NCD she has danced the roles of Clara, Snow Queen, Sugar Plum Understudy, and a soloist in Giselle. In her free time, you can find Madisyn listening to music and singing along.

 

Gina Ness

Instructor

Gina is a former principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet from 1972-1985. She performed leading roles in many ballets by many choreographers including Lew Christensen, Michael Smuin, and George Balanchine. She studied with many wonderful teachers growing up in San Francisco including Merriem Lanova, Penelope Lagios, Benjamin Reyes, Ludmilla Shollar, Anatole Vilzak, Marc Wilde, Alan Howard, and Richard Gibson. Before joining San Francisco Ballet, she danced with Ballet Celeste, the Marc Wilde Ballet, and Pacific Ballet.

She was a Ford Foundation Scholarship advanced student with San Francisco Ballet School in the late Sixties. Gina taught in Sonoma County for over twenty years, first for Sonoma Ballet Conservatory for thirteen years and then for ten years for Santa Rosa Dance Theater, serving as Assistant Artistic Director.