Singing

"I have had the privilege of growing up in Smithers, being a Creative Roots dancer, and then coming back to be a teacher and choreographer at one of their summer intensives. Wow was I impressed! The growth that the studio and students had undergone since my time at Creative Roots was absolutely amazing and made me so proud to be from such a magical place with so many talented individuals."
- Jamie Holmes

About Us
Our office hours are:

Monday & Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Please call 250-847-3030 or e-mail us if you’d like to make an appointment.

At Creative Roots, we want to foster growth and inspiration in all of our students and staff. Our instructors work relentlessly at maintaining a positive environment that allows for true creative exploration. Please review the policies below and see how you can help author the climate of community.

Confidence
Know that you already possess within you all you need to succeed. It merely waits to be awakened.

Respect
One must give respect in order to receive it. Always be generous in your courtesy and you will be rewarded.

Enrich
The lives of the people around you deserve to be nourished, as does yours. Be the hand that makes their day better and accept the efforts and kindnesses directed your way.

Attitude
Strive, every day, to be the best you. Work hard. Know that you will achieve your goal.

Thoughtfulness
Appreciate the genius of those around you. Be kind. Celebrate each other’s traits and gifts.

Engage
Honour your creative spirit. Let it sail and soar, fully throw yourself in to the moment. Commit.

Construct and C.R.E.A.T.E. a landscape of support and success.

The home of dancing hearts and the strong roots of community. Spirit, Fire, and Inspire.

We are a haven of creativity and self-expression solidly anchored in the sea of daily life. A school dedicated to fostering a warm, diverse and energetic environment, the core of community.

  • We believe in movement, strength and the solidarity of body and mind.
  • We believe that we have a responsibility to not only teach, but to infuse our students with positivity, confidence, and integrity.
  • We believe that everyone, regardless of age or ability, can find joy in dance.
  • We believe in life-long education and inspiration.
  • We believe that the expression of heart can be brought to action.

At Creative Roots Performing Arts you will find a wellspring of passionate and talented instructors waiting to make dance not only part of your week, but an essential facet of your life. We endeavor to provide you a heartfelt place to come and unearth your creative spark.

We believe in embracing that spark and bringing it to flame.

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire." ~ William Butler Yeats

At Creative Roots we take the safety and well-being of our students to heart. We are a tight-knit family and therefore all of our staff and instructors have passed a screening process and maintain up-to-date First Aid and CPR training. We also believe in continuous education and personal development to keep us current and inspired.

We have nothing but the best of ourselves to offer to our students.


Like a handful of firecrackers she sparks and flies.

Deidre Tansey

Deidre Tansey is a summer strawberry, a sun seeking kitty cat with an allegro step.

The beauty is in the details for the doyenne of Creative Roots whether it be an artfully placed photo, the crunch of deliciously toasted sugar on crème brule, or the toothy laughter of 7 year olds. She revels in it all.

Her heart is a treasure room of sweet silk garments, sacred oranges and well-filled glasses of sauvignon. As a specialist in the black art of positivity and director of a performing arts Shangri-La, she aspires to cultivate a deeper creative passion in her students, one that will last their lifetime. I bet you she still has her first pair of dance shoes, dusty and cherished.

Deidre was accepted in to the Professional Student Division of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet at age 13. It is no wonder then that she successfully earned a B.Ed. in Fine Art from the University of Victoria and is now living her dream as owner of Creative Roots.

A crackerjack mind, she orchestrates the ebb and flow of Creative Roots Performing Arts. For a life altering, art-loving experience click here for more information Everyone needs to chase a dream.


A double rainbow of vivacity, she offers you a rare vintage of positivity and provision.

Sharon Carrington

Sharon Carrington is dark chocolate with a nibble of chili. A soothing café au lait room with a strategic hit of animal print.

Afire for symphony, score, and song, Sharon has spent the richest years of her life in concert with music. And the years remain resplendent in experience, gilded in melody.

Empress of espresso. She believes in the goodness of self, and the badness of cheap coffee. Her energy is everlasting, effervescent. Know her for her open-mouthed hilarity and sanguine spirit. Marvel at her moxie when she tailgated her own musical notes to dance, at age 29.

Les Miserable, Annie, Oliver, and the Sound of Music are only a smattering of Sharon’s legion accomplishments in voice and piano…besides her BMus and ARCT of course, which give her the strength of theory to partner with her zest for music.

There is music for every mood, and an instrument for any hand, as long as you dig deep and uncover passion. Let Sharon help you find your fancy at Creative Roots Performing Arts. Exalt in the shooting star of music.


A bountiful rush of peppery joy and cleverness; she isn’t just the girl in the afternoon, the aperitif.

Amanda Dorscht

Amanda Dorscht is Audrey Hepburn with a day planner and rock climbing shoes. Une danseuse adventureux.

Amanda intuitively knows that our triumphs are measured by our fairy dust inspirations and gemstone passions. Offer a piece of yourself while you dance. Put starlight in your smile. Pay the alms and receive the joy in a willowy port-de-bras.

Her smile is more than mere impeccable oral hygiene. It is fueled by a vivacious life-longing for the beauty of movement. Whether it be running on rainy forest trails or dancing in her kitchen, Amanda delights in the limitless potential of the human form. For her, success lies in being inspired by the act, and not in its perfection.

A ballet teacher since 2002, she managed to fit in enough study time to receive her BBA with Honours from Brock University in Ontario. And now she can bestow her genius upon the people of Smithers.

The administrative backbone of Creative Roots Performing Arts, Amanda can be romanced with offerings of honeyed cantaloupes and peanut butter sandwiches. You wanna be top of the class, right? Click here to glimpse your potential. Be inspired by the allure of your movement.


A wellspring woman.

Janet Harris

Janet Harris dances on the music she treasure hunts between the beats. The flame of vitality.

Wholeheartedly, Janet plucks every perfectly formed grape of life experience from the vine. Intrepid enough to learn tap dancing in her 30s, she is resolved to feast from the buffet of life...and why stop at just one dessert when you’ve got dancer’s legs?

The heartseed of Creative Roots, Janet cultivated the performing arts school from its garden bed beginnings 20 years ago. She continues to don her dance shoes so that she may deliver her waltzing wisdom and foxtrot flair to hungry hearts and heads. Ever the student, she makes an enlightened teacher.

Inspired at Life, she is gladdened ever more while dancing and instructing and laughing at Creative Roots Performing Arts. Call us to renew your lifespark, or to unearth a tingly new flame. Coax those embers, baby.


Graceful in chaos, whirling in the balance of busyness, she becomes the soft place to land.

Stephanie Huxtable

Stephanie Huxtable is a ruby-glow glass of Shiraz, cradled lovingly in the palm of a Mr. Bubble scented hand.

She is the maven of multitasking who has made dance her milk and honey. She takes the sticky with the sweet and then puts it in alphabetical order: fisherwoman, scuba diver, skier, starry-eyed life enthusiast.

Stephanie skillfully, artfully, honestly dons her dance shoes and guides her students to dance in concert with freedom. To enunciate their lives with silly warm up dances and laughter. To find an oasis along the journey, a shelter during any tempest, once the music begins.

She is an expert on life experiences. Studying the Cecchetti Method in Ballet, training and teaching dance in Quesnel BC, and there is a delicious rumour she worked her hips as a professional belly dancer. But sadly this is mere hearsay… she was then, thankfully, romanced back to Smithers and Creative Roots.

The splendors of spin, step, and strut begin at Creative Roots Performing Arts with instructors with an undiluted fire for inspired artistry. Stephanie is the yellow brick road to take you there…and here. Find your groove, and then pave it gold.


Glitterbomb, yo.

Monica Kapelar

Monica Kapelar is a passion chaser in pointe shoes.

Kamikaze dance maven and guiding light for all those who cross her path. She’ll hold your hand, light your fire, and give you an ‘A’ if you guess her age as 26.

A salad scarfing sweetheart and spark plug, who signed herself up for dance classes at the bright light age of 10…and the music hasn’t stopped since. Not when she lived in Germany and not never even, when her address was listed in France. It only got even more bewitching when she gifted her daughter, Jessica, to the world.

An international dance darling, she has trained with the Berlin Opera Ballet Professional Division and Paris Danse. She graduate with honours (naturally) with a Diploma in Dance and snatched a National Diploma in Classical Ballet while in France. Monica has graced the stages as the principal dancer for the Ontario Ballet Theatre, the Hamilton Opera Company, and the Wayne Barbaste Danse Companie. She has been sharing her craft at Creative Roots since 1997.

Like her yen for quiet words at the end of the day and licking salt off her fingers, Monica dreams of wooing her students to a place where they unearth their own passions in performing arts. Go ahead, click the link and join us. Trust me, you want a piece of this.


Like a crimson arrow, she flies right and true, transfixing the colour of your dreams as she dances.

Katie Wertz

Katie Wertz is a lithesome and striking spruce, unceasingly cultivating roots while still tickling the stars with indefatigable fingertips.

Stories lie within lyrics, and lyrics shall be danced. Katie is a storyteller in sunlight, lost in the tale. With a searing awareness beyond her years, she spins and spins embers in to flames, dance steps in to symbols.

A crisp red apple of opportunity; her grand ambitions require an inexhaustible source of peanut butter cups and Salvador Dali cleverness and well-worn dance shoes. Katie seeks to never stop seeking, to continue her journey up and forward.

Katie is a Creative Roots lifer, having completed all of her training in Smithers. Most recently she has been accepted in to the Professional Program at Arts Umbrella. Her journey of inspiration has only just begun.

Dance and performance have helped Katie to sprout, stem, and stretch. Take a chance and explore your brilliance with Creative Roots Performing Arts. You will never regret a passion accidentally unearthed.

A big part of dance training is learning through performance. Although performance opportunities can help prepare students for a possible career in dance, they also contribute to children's success in non-dance activities. the performance experience helps build self-esteem and self-confidence and can result in better in-school presentations, improved social skills, and strong interview skills for future job opportunities.

Peek Weeks

Although this isn't actually a performance, it is one of the ways that we share! A few times per semester, we invite parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles & friends into the studio to watch their dancers. For the last 15 minutes of class we welcome you to come on in & see what your child(ren) have been doing in class. Cameras & video cameras encouraged.

Family Show & Tell

Every even numbered year we invite family & friends to watch an informal "show" in the St. Joe's gymnasium. The costumes are simply the dress code from each class. We have an afternoon show and an evening show on the last Saturday of the season. There is a nominal ticket fee, all of which goes towards the scholarships and awards for the students.

Spring Gala

Every odd numbered year we offer our students a professionally directed performance that allows them to present to their families and friends the results of that year's hard work dedication and progress. Dedication to the recital commitments is the responsibility of both students and their parents. We have created a handbook in an effort to clarify what we expect from you in terms of commitments and a responsibility to the recital, the school and other students and parents. This handbook will be distributed in October of the recital year.

“We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.” ~ Marilyn Monroe