The Studio                              
A Dance & Performing Arts Center

Our Mission

The Studio staff is diverse and firmly committed to extending the joy of dance and the performing arts through quality instruction. Our mature and experienced teachers focus on clean technique as well as love of movement in a wide variety of dance forms. Classes consist of barre and floor warm-ups, simple to more complicated center work, and some solo exercises across the floor. Precise technique, correct body alignment and musicality are the primary goals in all our classes. With our open enrollment policy students may join a class at any time. The teacher and other members of the class will help newcomers to feel welcome and included. While we are primarily a teaching facility, we do give our students -children and adults alike - the opportunity to demonstrate their skills in a performance in which participation is voluntary. Costume costs are kept to a minimum. We pride ourselves on being a small school where the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity. We strive to instill a love and respect for the performing arts in our students.

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Our Teachers

Marilyn Smayda

Teacher, Artistic Director & Owner of The Studio

Marilyn Smayda studied ballet with Lydia Pettine. She danced professionally with American Festival Ballet in Augsburg, Germany and toured Europe with the group. While in college, she performed with the Modern Dance Company of URI and taught ballet in Kingston. She has studied in New York with David Howard and Finis Jung and at Jacob's Pillow and Mary Mount College in Pennsylvania.

 Michael Wilson

Teacher, Choreographer, Adjudicator

Michael Wilson is well known throughout Rhode Island for his fast paced, exciting ballet classes and workshops. Michael Wilson was raised in rural Wyoming and studied in New York City as a scholarship student with The Joffrey Ballet School, where he trained under David Howard, Melissa Hayden and Diana Cartier.

Later he danced with The Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, Festival Ballet Theater, Ballet Caracas, Cleveland Ballet, Milwaukee Ballet, Louisville Ballet, New England Dinosaur and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre.

Michael's performance credits include works by Paul Taylor, Ben Stevenson, George Balanchine, Jiri Killian, Lisa De Ribere, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, Eugene Loring, Michael Christensen, Chu San Goh, Marius Patina, Agnes de Mille, Bruce Wells, Augustus Bournonville, Michael Fokine, Alvin Ailey, Andre Prokovsky and Jean-Peirre Bonnefoux.

Michael's choreography has received top awards at competitions throughout the New Enlgand area and he is a popular adjudicator at dance competitions.

Chamoni Mossa-Simone

Teacher, Choreographer

Chamoni studied dance at studios in the Worcester county area as well as the Worcester Youth Ballet under Kevin Milam. She spent a summer in Bermuda and performed in the corps de ballet of the Bermuda Civic Ballet. After this achievement Chamoni attended Dean College in Franklin, MA and the University of Hartford in West Hartford, CT, where she obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance. During college she studied with Jill Silverman, Alla Osipienko, Maria Youskevich, Wang Sho Pen, Peggy Lyman, Raymond Lukens, Franco DeVita, and many others.

Chamoni continues her education by working toward a teaching certificate in the Cecchetti Method. She has completed Grades 1 through 4 and is currently workingtoward an Elementary Level certification. In order to achieve these certifications, she studies with a coach, Carolyn Trythall, in Pennsylvania on a regular basis and has been a member of the Cecchetti Council of America for 10 years, attending the Cecchetti Council of America's Summer School. She has been teaching for 14 years at studios throughout Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Her students have received overall hish score awards as well as technical excellence and choreography awards. 

Chamoni has travelled to Reisa, Germany to compete her and a colleague's choreography at the International Dance Organization's Showdance Competition achieving both a 5th place and 7th place award. Chamoni's students haved moved on to college as well as achieve parts with companies in Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and New York. Chamoni and her husband Bruce ive in Rhode Island with their three children, Aniena, Angelo and Dacia.

Louise Turilli

Teacher, Choreographer

Louise Turilli started ballet at the age of 6 with Lida Pettine. From the age of fifteen, she spent her sumers in New York City studying ballet at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo as well as continuing to train with Mrs. Pettine. She was a founding member of Festival Ballet and on the Board of Directors of RI Civic Ballet. After she retired from performance, she taught and choreographed for Festival Ballet as well as many other Rhode Island dance school including The Studio and The Dance Art Forum. Her classes have been called "Lidia classes" as she teaches very much like her legendary teacher.

Erja Fischer

Teacher, Choreographer, Dancer

Of Finnish and Swiss descent, Erja was born and raised in Switzerland. She started her dance education at seven to help overcome an injury, and her first lessons were from the City Theater in St.Gallen, Switzerland. In 1968, she debuted with the City Theater Company in One Night In Venice. Staying with the company until 1974, she performed in numerous theater and ballet productions. In 1974, she received a scholarship for the Sibelus Academia in Helsinki, and moved to Finland where she studied Modern and Jazz dance, Mime, Drama, and Voice. In 1976 Erja returned to Switzerland continuing her education at the Colombo Dance Factory in Zurich and later at the University of Zurich. During this period she founded her first dance company, The Zurich Dance Connection(1982-1985). At the same time Erja continued to teach dance and fitness, adding prophylactic back fitness from ten years of training at the ETH Zurich (Technical University Zurich) where she holds diplomas in Massage Therapy and Modeling. She studied jazz technique with Matt Mattox, and became an advocate of his methods. Her dance style very much reflects his influence. In 1985 Erja, with her then husband and their two children, moved to the U.S. where she became a dance consultant and assistant coach for the Gymnastic team at the University of Rhode Island. She also started the dance and movement program at River Bend Health Club in Peace Dale, Rhode Island. In 1990 she founded her second jazz dance troup-The DanceArt Company. Between 1991 and 1994, Erja owned and managed the DanceArt Forum, a dance school, located in Narragansett. She received a BFA degree in Theater Management (1995). She continued to work as a freelance teacher and producer in both the New England area and her native Switzerland until 1996 when she re-opened the Dance Art Forum (now Dance Forum) in the Hamilton section of Wickford as a home for the DanceArt Company. In 2000 she returned to Switzerland and in 2003 opened a DanceArt Forum Switzerland, but comes to Rhode Island several times a year to teach workshops and, when necessary, perform massage for aching backs and shoulders.



Who We Are

We are a special and unique
studio that offers a complete
schedule for adults, teens
and children.

Dancers of all levels welcome.

Quality instruction by an
attentive staff.

Open enrollment year round.