Let's Meet our Team

Starting at the age of 2, Hayley always knew dance was going to be her passion. She grew up dancing at Academy of Classical and Contemporary Dance located in Chesapeake, VA and was a member of the Fusion Dance Team, where she traveled up and down the east coast for competitions. In addition to the dance team, she also attend Governor’s School for the Arts where she focused on different modern dance methods in a conservatory setting.

Hayley is also a 2019 James Madison University graduate where she received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Dance. Throughout her time at JMU, Hayley was a part of the Contemporary Dance Ensemble where she performed in 16 dance concerts, with 6 of those concerts featuring her choreography.

Even more than performing, Hayley loves teaching and sharing her passion with others. Her favorite part about teaching is watching her students showcase their hard work during recital! Outside of teaching at the studio, Hayley loves playing with her dog, going to the beach & spending time with family.

Valerie Bell is an integral part of the success of bellA dance. She has worked tirelessly to make April, her big sister's dream a reality, and she continues to offer support and leadership in many capacities. She seeks to instill self-confidence, discipline, integrity, and respect in her dancers so that as they grow they become well-rounded individuals. Valerie is also very committed to the idea that bellA dance should offer a sense of family where dancers feel good about themselves and supported by the people around them. She feels that she is continually learning from her students whom she describes as nothing less than “incredible.”

Valerie began dancing at the age of three at Jean Wallace Dance Studio in Virginia Beach. She credits some of her earliest memories, her closest friends, and her sense of self to the art of dance. Her talent was apparent as she became a member of their dance company while still very young which allowed her to perform at many local events and even in Disney World. As a junior and senior in high school, Valerie was the captain of the First Colonial Dance team and served as the team’s choreographer her senior year. She attended Virginia Commonwealth University and was selected to become a part of the VCU dance team. Additionally, she continued her dance studies at the Richmond Ballet during college.

 Amber Romano, native of Rhode Island, received her early training at various classical ballet schools in her home state and spent summers training at prestigious schools such as Boston Ballet, Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, and Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. She spent her final years of high school training with internationally renowned coaches Trinidad Vives and Parren Ballard, and she was awarded the Anthony Quinn Foundation Scholarship in 2011 to further that training her senior year.

Upon high school graduation, Ms. Amber began her professional career with the Nashville Ballet in Tennessee. For four years, she performed in countless productions, her favorites including Swan Lake & George Balanchine's Serenade. In 2016, she joined the Todd Rosenlieb Dance and Virginia Ballet Theatre companies in Norfolk, VA, performing principal roles with both companies for four years, as well as directing the pre-professional Virginia Ballet Theatre Ensemble.

Ms. Amber first began teaching ballet in 2014, and her curriculum is influenced by her brilliant teachers, decades of one-on-one work with dance physiotherapists, and her own students. She seeks to educate on the science and anatomy behind the technique, as well as cultivate the sheer joy and wonder of expression through dance. She enjoys sharing her passion with all levels and abilities, from young children to recreational adults to professional company classes. Her choreography has won multiple awards at regional and national dance competitions, as well as being featured in The Governor's School for the Arts Dance concerts. She has been on faculty at The Governor's School of the Arts in Norfolk since 2022, teaching ballet & pointe to pre-professional students in the Dance and Musical Theatre departments. This is Ms. Amber’s 10th season with BellA dance, and she could not be more grateful for this found family and her incredible students that inspire her each day.

A Virginia native, Morgan graduated from Christopher Newport University with a degree in Musical Theatre. After graduating, Morgan performed with TRDance in Norfolk before spending 10 years living in New York City working as a professional dancer and actor at theatres and venues in NYC and across the US. Favorite theatre credits include productions of West Side Story, Carousel, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Will Rogers Follies, Swing and the national tour of Cats. Morgan came back to Hampton Roads in 2019 and began teaching dance and theatre around the area, including at the Governor's School of the Arts. "To see us dance is to hear our hearts sing."