Skylar Taavola is the owner of Northern Sky Dance and Fitness, the home to the Shooting Starz Adaptive Dance Program, in Marquette MI. Skylar is from Negaunee and grew up studying multiple genres of dance, along with aerial silk, competitive dance, and gymnastics. Skylar began teaching dance at the young age of 14, and has experience teaching many different genres of dance, at New Attitudes Dance Studios in Marquette, Julie’s Top Hat Dance studio in Iron Mountain. She has also choreographed five Superior Arts Youth Theater musicals and Marquette’s Nutcracker Ballet. In 2019 Skylar created Shooting Starz, Marquette’s first adaptive dance program. Shooting Starz is a free and volunteer-based program for children with intellectual and physical disabilities. In 2021, Skylar was lucky enough to be an intern at Miss Kim’s Children’s Dance and Arts, in North Carolina, where she learned more about teaching youth and children with disabilities.
Skylar graduated from Northern Michigan University in 2022, with a degree in Management of Health and Fitness, and a Dance minor, where she was a four-year member of the NMU Dance Team and the president her senior year. After graduating, she has spent the past two summers at Bay Cliff Health Camp as the Performing Arts Instructor for children with disabilities. When Skylar is not teaching dance, she is a Coach at Fit Body Boot Camp. Skylar is excited for her first-year choreographing “Dancing with our Stars Marquette County Style,” and very thankful for the opportunity.