Our Staff
The Music City All Stars staff is comprised of the best of the best in each style or genre they teach. Our staff is dedicated to growing the dancer as a whole and truly invested in each child. The owners, Kirstin Hawk and Valerie Reynolds, take pride in the elite staff they have as well as offering continued education and training for their instructors.
“The coaches are the most caring people you will ever meet. They will do anything to help as much as they can. Bettering their students, not only as dancers but also for the real world, is a talent every coach has. ”
Kirstin Hawk, Co-Owner
A lifelong dancer, Kirstin began her dance teaching career combining her love of dance with her degree in early childhood education. While a veteran of teaching and judging studio dance, she recognized the need for dance in public schools and founded many of the middle and high school dance teams in the greater Nashville area. Her efforts not only created numerous teams but has resulted in 8 state championships. Kirstin grew up in Murfreesboro, Tn and has been dancing her entire life. Along with Valerie Reynolds, Kirstin founded the Music City All Stars Dance Team, the first and only team based All-Star team in Middle Tennessee. Her award winning choreography has resulted in over 70 national Championships and finalists in the USASF Dance Worlds across the jazz, lyrical, hip hop and pom categories. She is currently serving on the national advisory board for the United States All Star Federation. Kirstin has a strong passion for watching dancers grow in a positive learning environment. She continues to share her knowledge as well as attend many teaching conferences each year.
Valerie Reynolds, Co-Owner
Valerie was born and raised in Nashville, TN. Her mother started her in dance at the early age of 3 as a way to burn her excess energy. It started then and continues today. Dance took her to The University of Tennessee, where she became a member of their nationally ranked dance team. While on the team, she earned a full scholarship for all four years. After experiencing UTDT, she made the transition to work summer camps as an UDA instructor, which she continued for the duration of her college career. This lead to many opportunities to travel the US teaching young dancers, acting as Head Instructor, and organizing camp activities. She also coordinated 200 dancers for the London parade, choreographing material for camp and prestigious judging opportunities for The National Dance Team Championship held in Orlando, Florida.
She then discovered that coaching was truly a calling at the collegiate level. She progressed as the co-head coach of The University of TN dance team for two years. While coaching, Valerie celebrated as UT made a name for itself as the first National Championship obtained by the dance team in 2007. She returned home to Nashville and it did not take long for dance to re-enter her life as she has worked with local high schools in choreography. Now she is the co-owner of Music City All Stars since 2008. Our All Star teams have experienced much success. Valerie lives in Brentwood with her husband, Jacob, daughter, Lovette, and son, Valor. Looking forward to the future, she hopes that her work experience and knowledge will benefit the local dance community.
Andrea Goble, All-Star and Competition Team Director
Andrea was born in North Carolina where she began dancing at age 5. She started competing after only one year of dance and has been in love with it ever since. Andrea moved to Brentwood at a young age. Here she continued dancing by training and competing at DC Dance Factory. She was also a member of the WMS Dance Team and the RHS Dance Team. While on the team she competed with them at state and national level competitions. They earned three TSSAA State Championships and several high rankings at the UDA National Competition. Once graduating high school, Andrea studied at UTK where she completed her degree in Retail and Consumer Sciences. There, Andrea was a member of the nationally ranked Tennessee Dance Team. While finishing her college career Andrea worked at Revolution Dance Studio where she taught a variety of dance classes to kids of all ages. She currently lives in Brentwood and coaches at Music City All Stars. She loves being able to share her passion for dance through coaching and works to demonstrate her love for the sport by having a positive impact on her students.
Kara Harper, Office Manager
Kara was born and raised in Murfreesboro, TN. She has danced since the age of 3. Throughout high school, Kara was very involved not only in her studio but as well as her high school dance team. After graduating high school she then went to college where she got a degree in Phlebotomy. Kara now is so excited to be working at Music City Allstars, where teaching the kids her love for dance, is her first priority. Kara coached her first year here at Music City where her mini team took 1st place at the UDA national dance competition. Currently, she runs our front desk 24/7. Not only does Kara love her Music City family, she also loves being a mother, to her son, Kyler and daughter, Hartile. She looks forward to helping your dancers believe in themselves and reach their goals during the 2017-18 season!
Chloe Poole, Preschool coordinator and competitive coach
Chloe Poole was born and raised in Nashville Tennessee. Her passion for dance began at an early age. She has extensive training in ballet, pointe, jazz, lyrical, hip-hop, and tumbling. Chloe grew up dancing and competing all over the country. She holds many overall competitive titles for her solos, and has danced multiple lead roles such as "Clara" in "The Nutcracker", and "Tinker Bell" in "Peter Pan." She has trained with well-known dancers and choreographers such as Tyce Diorio, Laureann Gibson, Emily Shock, Dana Wilson, Joey Dowling, Taja Riley, Dave Scott, and Mia Michaels. She has received multiple scholarships to conventions and enjoys furthering her dance training every chance she gets. Chloe is an alumnus to the World ranked team, Music City All Stars. She has had the joy to coach for the MCAS program throughout the past few years(2014- current.) She stays busy instructing competitive classes all around the Nashville area for studios, workshops, and schools. She has helped lead her teams to National Championship titles as well as receiving numerous choreography awards for her work. Chloe is very passionate about children and specializes in working with young aged dancers. She hopes that her passion for dance will reflect on to her students, and is so excited to get to play a part in their dancing journey.
Jennifer Lee, Recreational Team Director
Jennifer grew up in Brentwood, TN and began taking dance at a local studio at the age of 3. Throughout middle school, she fell in love with competing while on an all-star team and during high school she was a member and captain of Brentwood High’s dance team. She went to college in Knoxville where she coached and danced for an all-star studio. She competed at the first Dance Worlds in 2007 as a part of an Open Jazz team and has coached at numerous all-star dance competitions (Athletic, Cheersport, One Up, Jamfest, UDA and NDA). She also choreographed routines for several middle and high schools in the Knoxville area and taught gymnastics classes as well. After moving home to Nashville, she earned her Masters degree and spent time as an elementary school teacher. After having her son, she decided to devote her time to being a mom. Jennifer truly loves working with kids of all ages and enjoys teaching styles such as jazz, hip hop and pom. She is also certified to teach barre and HIIT classes. Jennifer loves to help develop the gifts and talents in children and loves being a part of the Music City family!
“I love teaching dance but more importantly enjoy teaching kids lessons that they will carry with them throughout life.”
Sarah Shillinglaw, Teacher
Sarah was born and raised here, in Franklin, TN. She danced on her dance team at Centennial High School and competed with a local dance studio, for 10 years. During college, Sarah was a member of the University of TN Dance Team, graduating with 3 National Championship titles. She also worked for Universal Dance Association as an Instructor, Head Instructor, and Judge for 4 years. After college, she helped develop a competitive dance program at a local Knoxville studio and was the technique coach for a nationally ranked high school dance team. In 2013, Sarah decided to move back to middle Tennessee and has continued to assist in preparing various dance programs for their competition season, by teaching technique, choreographing, and “cleaning” routines. While technique and cleaning routines are her specialty, her favorite part of teaching is watching her students grow and overcome obstacles.
“I enjoy encouraging and coaching dancers to reach their fullest potentials”
Lance Bowie, Tumbling
Coach Bowie is a 8-year veteran coach with Vanderbilt Cheerleading. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska he is known to be the first Alaskan male gymnast to compete at the Junior Olympic level. Lance is a graduate of the University of Washington and was team captain for the UW Men’s Gymnastics team for 3 years. He earned his degree in Geographic Information Systems. Outside of Vanderbilt Cheerleading, Lance serves as the tumbling and conditioning coach at Premier Cheer in Tennessee.
Ashley Simmons, Teacher
Ashley started dancing at the age of 3 back in St. Joseph, Missouri. She danced competitively till she turned 19. She then became an MLS dancer for the KC Wizards before moving to Houston, Texas. Once she moved to Texas she became a Houston Texans Cheerleader for 3 years and a captain for 1yr. While with the Texans she performed with Clay Walker, Toby Keith and did many performances for the Super Bowl including Rock’n Jock and TRL with artist ChingyShe also graduated from Sam Houston State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Performance Dance. She then continued her dance career out in Los Angeles California. She worked as a dancer/acrobat for Imagination Entertainment in multiple Broadway shows and their iL CiRCo shows. She also did some backup dancing for multiple artists. While she continued her dance career she shared the love of dancing with her students at Dance For Kids/Brentwood Academy of Dance. She was a competition director for their competition team for the last 10 years. She had many award winning routines in acrobatics, musical theater, lyrical, jazz, tap, hip hop and jazz funk. Ashley is excited to join the Music City All Stars family!
Riley Nedrow, Teacher
A native to the Nashville area, Riley was born and raised in Murfreesboro, TN and has been dancing since she was 3. She is currently a junior at Middle Tennessee State University, where she is majoring in Child Development and hopes to one day be a Child Life Specialist. She danced and competed with Music City All Stars for 8 years. In that time she proved herself an exemplary dancer as she and her team won many National Titles, and placed top 5 in the World several times. She is so excited to share her passion for dance with young dancers in the studio that she grew up at!
Kristin Lindsay, Ballet Teacher
Kristin studied as a student of Marin Dance Theatre under Margaret Swarthout former soloist of the Royal Ballet. She had a professional career with both Ballet Florida and Company C Contemporary Ballet performing and touring for eight years. Transitioning to a teaching career, Kristin joined the faculty of The Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and with success, was able to place her students into various pre professional summer programs such as English National Ballet and the Paris Opera Ballet School. Upon moving to Tennessee Kristin served on the faculty of Nashville Ballet for one year teaching in both the upper and lower divisions. Cofounder of Nashville Classical Ballet Academy, Kristin holds the position of Assistant Director. This small refined program for career bound students has already led its student body to summer program acceptances with the Royal Ballet School, Boston Ballet School, Houston Ballet, Kirov Academy, English National Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, to name a few, and on a professional level - offers for traineeships around the country. In NCBA’s second year, the small school attended Youth America Grand Prix coming home with multiple achievements by students placing in categories of top twelve, top twenty-four and won third in the classical category. Kristin teaches to a classical curriculum pulling from her background while studying under Shannon Bresnahan, Margaret Swarthout, and Jorge Esquivel.