About

Mission Statement

Our mission is to create accessible art for the community and to give trained professionals an opportunity to express themselves and share their art. We present family friendly shows and spread the art of dance in the community, making it available to all demographics. 

History

Photo by Rebecca Graney Photography

Ash & Elm Dance Co. is a 501(c)3 non-profit contemporary based professional dance company, in Northern Virginia, founded by Ashley McCullough and Amber Gardner. Although Ash & Elm was officially founded in 2019, the company’s roots truly began ten years prior as our co-founders met while attending Brigham Young University’s BA in Dance program. During collaborations on projects, they quickly realized how organically their choreographic styles meshed. After graduation, life separated them until 2018, when they were reunited once again. Ashley has had work shown throughout North Carolina, in Philadelphia, and Baton Rouge. Amber has numerous choreography awards for her competitive dance pieces. Their work together has been shown in Virginia, Philadelphia and Chicago. Through the years as Ash & Elm has grown we have gladly accepted dancers from various stages of life, ages 18-40, recent high school and college grads, even mothers of multiple children. As we continue to grow, we are excited to create opportunities for professional and pre-professional dancers that don't exist elsewhere in our area, including performance, choreography, and even leadership roles. We strive to make Ash & Elm accessible to all who deserve the chance and to work with those fitting our mission. Nearly all of our current company members, including our founders, studied dance in college and are Dance Educators locally. We look forward to seeing where this journey continues to take Ash & Elm Dance Co.!

Meet The Directors

Amber gardner

Amber grew up dancing lyrical, tap, jazz, ballet, hip hop, and break-dancing.  She completed her formal education at Brigham Young University, graduating with a Bachelors in Dance emphasizing in contemporary/modern.  She has been able to perform with the Martha Graham Dance Company, Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company, Luki Dance Productions and has also worked with Donald McKayle, Ivan Pulinkala, and Pat Debenham.  She had an opportunity to tour India with Contemporary Dance Theatre in 2012 and learned lot about traditional Indian dance and Yoga. This experience inspired her to become a 200hr certified Yoga Instructor.  Amber’s choreography and movement styles are heavily based on Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.”

ashley Mccullough

Ashley specializes in tap and contemporary dance but has extensive training in ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical, modern, folk, and contemporary and has dipped her toes into other various styles including, but not limited to, hip hop, breakdancing and ballroom. In 2011, Ashley earned her Bachelor of Arts in Dance at Brigham Young University. In her last performance in college, she had the opportunity to perform in “Panorama” with the Martha Graham Dance Company. She has danced professionally with Wasatch Contemporary Dance Company, Cangelosi Dance Project, Mina Estrada, Code f.a.d. Company, Bellan Contemporary Dance Theatre and more. Ashley’s choreography has been presented in North Carolina at Triangle Dance Project’s Emergence and North Carolina Dance Festival, and in Philadelphia at KYL/D’s InHale Performance Series. She is a 200-hr Registered Yoga Teacher and enjoys sharing her love of movement with all movers.