As a student Talia received training at the Flint School of Performing Arts, Blue Lake fine arts camp, Joffrey Midwest, Interlochen, and the Dance Theater of Harlem (She attended all of these schools on merit scholarships). She has been blessed to have been mentored by many great dancers and teachers some of which include Joffrey’s John Magnus and Judy Rice, Dance Theater of Harlem Directing founder Arthur Mitchell, DTH’s Tyrone Brookes (Now serving as Artistic Director of The Tallahassee Ballet), Lorraine Graves, and Choreographer Darrell Grand Moultrie. As a professional dancer Talia has had the opportunity to work with Urban Bush Women, Ann Arbor Works Dance Company, Flint Water Project, FIM’s Nutcracker and More Dances Contemporary Dance Company. Currently she is a member of the multi-disciplinary Vertical Ambition Dance Company and is entering her 10th year working with the company. She remains on faculty at Fli-City Dance Studio, home to Vertical Ambition.

Talia Wooten is an ABT Certified teacher. She holds a certification in levels pre-primary through level 3 in the American Ballet Theater National Training Curriculum. She is currently the only African American women in Michigan to have this certification. Although Ballet is Talia’s main focus she is well versed in modern, contemporary ballet, jazz and breaking.

Talia Wooten has 19 years of experience teaching movement to students aged birth through adult. Talia has had the opportunity to teach master classes and serve on the faculty of many Michigan dance schools. She has taught countless outreach classes in Genesee County and served as the Flint School of Performing Art’s Head-Start Coordinator, Summer Dance-N-Fun director, Children’s Performance Workshop Director and Adult Ballet Ensemble Founder and Director. She also served as the Children’s Ballet Mistress for the FSPA’s yearly production of the Nutcracker for 14 years. Talia served as an ABT project Plie’ teacher for the Boys and Girls Club for 2 years. In addition to teaching in the classroom Talia has created a course in GISD’s Edupaths program for teacher training focused around incorporating movement into early childhood classrooms. Recently Talia co-founded A.R.T. Addressing Racial Tensions, an art collective that aims to build community through discussion and collaborative creation of multi-genre art. Her goal is to continue to build the A.R.T. non-profit and to break racial tensions in and around Genesee using both professional artist and community members. Talia also serves as a Tinkergarten teacher, a nature play school, and often brings her husband and 4 children along to participate. Talia is excited to be working at CreativeExpressions and glad to be joining the CEDS dance family.