Velma Buchanan |
Velma Buchanan has studied dance for seventeen years. She studied dance team at Mary Immaculate and Marcus High School and later continued her dance training in Jazz, Tap, Hip Hop and Vagonava technique in Ballet at North Lake College under Brenda Parker of Houston Ballet. Velma then married in August of 2000 and moved to Oahu, Hawaii where she continued her formal education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa studying Modern dance and Movement Fundamentals under Gregg Lizenberry of the Jose Limon Modern Dance Company and Elizabeth Fisher of the Nikolais Louis Modern Dance Company, as well as Balanchine technique in Ballet under Eve Walstrum Sanders, once Principal dancer of the Netherlands Ballet. After leaving the island, Velma and her husband David moved back to Texas where she finished her Modern dance and Jazz training at Texas State University in San Marcos under Michelle Nance and LeAnne Smith-Stedman of the Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Company. Velma was also a departmental teaching assistant teaching Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Hula, Movement Fundamentals and Introduction to Fine Arts. Velma graduated Magna Cum Laude from Texas State University in San Marcos with her Bachelor of Science in Dance and a Minor in English in May of 2005. Outside of her formal education, Velma has also studied Ballet under Gelsey Kirkland of ABT as well as Modern dance under Gabriel Masson of Jose Limon Modern Dance Company, Peter Esprito of Tau Dance Theatre Hawaii, The Second Hand Dance Company and by personal invitation with the Erick Hawkins Modern Dance Company in Manhattan, New York under Katherine Duke, Director. She has also been a Guest Instructor for Greenhill Academy in Dallas, Texas and New Braunfels Dance Studio in New Braunfels, Texas. She has also performed at many industrial events and conventions for Incredible Productions Company of Dallas and she has performed as a Guest Artist at the Dance for the Planet Festival and Nuwhirks at the Greenhill Academy in Dallas, Texas under the direction of Texas State University.