Janalyn Memmott: Mormon Dancer
Janalyn Memmott is a dancer, choreographer, and dance instructor. She has been an adjunct ballet faculty at Brigham Young University since August 2004. She was the dance department chair at The Waterford School for five years. She is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
She started dancing at age three and studied ballet, jazz, tap, and baton. She was a championship baton twirler at age thirteen, winning over 60 trophies and many titles. She directed her focus on ballet and studied with Jacqueline Colledge. She performed with the Utah Youth Ballet (currently Utah Regional Ballet).
In high school she continued to dance and also lettered in debate and was a member of the National Honor Society. She attended Brigham Young University on academic and talent scholarships and performed with BYU Theatre Ballet for six seasons and The Dancers’ Company for one. She began choreographing and received several national honors. She earned her bachelor’s degree in ballet. She later received her master’s degree in dance performance.
She performed with Utah Contemporary Dance Theatre (currently Odyssey Dance Theatre), and was featured in the video “Saturday’s Warrior” as well as Industrials and television specials. She was also a dancer for the Utah Jazz and performed in the 1993 All-Star game. During this time she directed the BYU Theatre Ballet Youth Artist Program for five years and was an instructor in the BYU Ballet Department for nine years. She taught jazz and developed the ballet program for The Dance Club in Orem, Utah where she was an instructor for 20 years and at Center Stage Performing Arts for 15 years.
Memmott is currently Dance Academy Director at Pioneer Performing Arts High School in American Fork. She is an instructor at Aspire Dance Academy and works with the award winning Ethos Dance Project. She also travels throughout the United States as a freelance teacher and choreographer.
