About Us

Our Staff

Jessica Bolton

OWNER, DIRECTOR

Jessica is a Texarkana, Arkansas native and studied at Judith McCarty School of Dancing for fifteen years. At the age of 18 she obtained her Teacher’s Certificate from JMSD. During her time at Judith McCarty’s she was an active member of the Texarkana Community Ballet and has performed numerous roles in The Nutcracker that include the Dew Drop Queen and the Sugar Plum Fairy, as well as Coppélia, a friend of Swanhilda, and Prayer soloist in Coppélia. Jessica grew up attending the Texas Association Teachers of Dancing (TATD) convention, and studied under many choreographers including Jay Fagan, Leslie Scott, Mandy Moore, Keith Clifton, and Rhonda Miller. She was a both a Ballet and Merit Scholarship recipient as a student at TATD, and she is currently studying to become a member teacher of the organization. Jessica has attended many summer intensive programs including The Radio City Rockette’s, Ballet Magnificat!, and Ballet Austin.

Jessica obtained her B.S. in General Studies from the University of Mississippi and during her time in Mississippi she taught ballet, tap, and jazz at Grenada School of Performing Arts. After college, she moved to Louisiana to teach high school English and coached the varsity and junior varsity cheerleaders. Under her instruction, the Varsity team qualified and danced in the Disney Christmas Day parade in Orlando, Florida. Jessica has coached cheerleaders that have gone on to cheer on squads at Grambling State University, Northwestern State University, and the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Jessica began working at Red Door Dance Academy in Wylie, TX in the summer of 2015. She attends Dance League Convention where she continues to take classes and enhance her dance education with Desiree Robbins, Tyler Muhlenkamp, Alissa Parodowsky, and Ashley Silva. In the summer of 2017, she attended Dance Teacher Summit in Long Beach, California and had the honor of taking classes from the dance industry’s most prominent instructors and choreographers: Tiffany Henderson, Jennifer Ringer, Joe Tremaine, Avi Miller & Ofer Ben, and Fransisco Gella, just to name a few! Jessica is excited to put down roots in Texarkana and share her passion and love for dance with others.

Jessica currently volunteers for CASA, a national association in the United States that supports and promotes court-appointed advocates for abused or neglected children in order to provide children with a safe and healthy environment in permanent homes and serves on the board for Women for the Arts, a local non-profit organization that raises money to provide arts enrichment throughout the Texarkana community. She also donates her time to coach an annual dance competition that raises money for Temple Memorial Rehabilitation Center here in Texarkana.

Marisa Mailhes

FOUNDER

Marisa trained at Cherrilane School of Dance in Dallas, Texas for 13 years in ballet, tap, jazz, lyrical & hip hop. She has also studied contemporary, modern, theatrical dance, and pointe. Marisa began her performance career early when she landed a job as an actress on the Barney and Friends television show as Hannah. She danced and sang on the show for three years. This experience encouraged her love for performing and opened the doors for many other opportunities throughout her childhood both in the dance, acting and modeling world. She went on to study dance at Texas A&M University where she graduated with the first ever University Studies, Dance Concentration degree from A&M with a focus on classical modern dance as well as the art of teaching. She also obtained a minor in both communications and business. While in college, she was a principal member of the EmSu Dance Company and took master classes from many of their guest artists. Marisa also attended ACDF, American College Dance Festival all 4 years and was selected to perform at the festival several years. While in College Station she also professionally danced with the Armstrong Bergeron Dance Company, a modern based dance company. During College, she found her passion for contemporary dance and choreography. Marisa loves to find new and inventive ways to move and interesting themes and stories to portray through her dance.

Marisa began teaching in 2004 and has always had a love for children. As her dance career grew, she could never let go of teaching. She has taught at various studios throughout Texas as a lead instructor as well as teaching workshops for out of town studios. After finding Expressions Dance and Music in College Station she called this her home studio for many years and attributes Expressions with where she grew the most as a dance educator and choreographer. She became the director of many of their competitive dance companies and won various awards for choreography throughout the competition scene.

Marisa opened Red Door Dance Academy in 2010 to bring her passion for dance to the Wylie area. Red Door Dance was opened to create a place with high quality dance educators where dancers can fall in love with the art, be inspired, and have fun while learning. Marisa lives in Plano with her supportive husband, Trey and 3 beautiful children. Her daughter, Colbie, has started dancing at Red Door and her twin boys Asher & Hudson are not far behind!

Davida High

INSTRUCTOR, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF THE COMPANY AT RED DOOR

“Ms. Dee” as she’s better known, is a Texarkana native. She attended The University of Texas where she danced under the tutelage of Dr. Buss Gamble. After college Davida started her nursing career, continued her passion as an artist while teaching dance at Texarkana Dance Academy, and later opened her own studio. Davida joined the Red Door team in the summer of 2019 and has here ever since!

More coming soon 🙂

Kylah Holt

INSTRUCTOR

Kylah Holt is a performer, choreographer, and creator from New Boston, TX. At age eleven, she
trained at the Angela Davis School of Dance in DeKalb, TX, learning ballet, jazz, lyrical,
contemporary, tap, and musical theatre for seven years. After two years of dancing, she joined
the studio’s competition dance team, competing and receiving numerous special judges and
overall awards from regional and national dance competitions. From her sophomore to senior
year, she served in leadership roles, such as head captain and co-captain of the competition team,
assistant coach for the Pom Dance Team, and student dance instructor to younger students at the
studio.

In 2019, after graduating high school, Kylah went to study dance at Tyler Junior College (TJC).
During her time, she was introduced to modern techniques such as Graham, Cunningham,
Horton, and Limon, led by Carolyn Hanna and Shurrell Weibe. Also, she continued her ballet
studies under Thereza Bryce-Cotes, primarily training in the Cecchetti method. Outside her
studies, she served as a member and Social Media Coordinator for the TJC Dance Honor Society,
Chi Tau Epsilon, and was handpicked as a student choreographer for the TJC Theatre production,
“The Fantasticks”.

In 2021, Kylah received her A.A. in Dance and continued to pursue her bachelor’s degree in
dance studies at Texas Woman’s University (TWU). She continued learning various ballet,
improvisational, and modern techniques under Mary Wiliford-Shade, Jordan Fuchs, Sarah
Gamblin, Elisa De La Rosa, and various graduate-student assistants. During her time with the
university’s dance division, she was featured in dance films, two MFA Culminating Projects,
several concert pieces in both TWU’s DanceMakers and Dance UpClose, and her choreography
was selected and featured in one of the dance concerts her senior semester. In October of 2023,
Kylah, along with three of her TWU dance peers was selected to perform at the COCO Dance
Festival in Trinidad & Tobago, one of her biggest accomplishments so far! She was a member of
the National Honor Society for Dance Arts (NHSDA) and HiddenCity Dance Co., where she
held an officer position.

In December of 2023, Kylah obtained her B.A. in Dance Studies with double minors in Business
Administration and Entrepreneurship. Her long-term goals are to dance professionally for a
contemporary dance company and to own and direct her dance company in the future!

Elizabeth Standridge

INSTRUCTOR, THE COMPANY AT RED DOOR ASSISTANT

Landry Trammell

INSTRUCTOR

Landry is a Texarkana born native. She started dancing at the age of 3 where she has continued ever since. She was trained in ballet, tap, jazz, and contemporary. She started dancing at Red Door the fall of 2018 when the doors first opened. She graduated from Pleasant Grove High School in 2022 and now attends Texas A&M Texarkana as a nursing major. In addition to studio dance, she has spent many years dancing on Pleasant Groves’ drill teams. In middle school as a part of the Star Steppers and in high school as part of the Showstoppers. During her senior year, she served as Captain of the highly esteemed ShowStoppers. Throughout her drill team journey she attended various camps, competitions, learned how to lead a team, and received many awards such as: All American x4, Outstanding Performer x2, and Miss High Kick all by the American Dance Drill Team (ADTS) company. She had the opportunity to attend nationals, officer camp, and led her team to victory as the Best of the Best Team (2022) at the Kilgore College Rangerette Gussie Nell Davis Dance Classic competition.

Landry has been a teacher at Red Door since 2022 where she specializes in teaching the “littles” her love of dance and is the director of the studio’s drill team, Fired Up.

Landry is currently finishing up her first year of nursing school where in the next year she hopes to become a Neonatal ICU nurse.

Kendal Dockery Thompson

PHOTOGRAPHER

Hi there! My name is Kendal Dockery Thompson and I am so excited to be the face behind the camera at all the Red Door Dance Academy events: Recitals, Picture Week, and other fun times for dancers dressed in their costumes!

I am a natural light, on location, camera artist here in the Texarkana area! I am currently in my tenth year of business and loving every minute of it. When I do not have a camera glued to my face you can find me teaching math to some sweet second graders at Theron Jones Elementary. This is my third year in the classroom. Running a full-time business and being a teacher is not for the faint of heart, but I truly believe these are my two callings in life and I hope to continue to do both for as long as I possibly can. I started my photography business at the young age of 16 when my yearbook adviser put a camera in my hand and it just took off from there. I graduated Pleasant Grove High School and went on to get my teaching degree from Texas A&M University-Texarkana. Through my photography business, I have met some of the most amazing people, I have been able to travel out of the US to capture weddings and made some of the best friends along the way!

Photographs are something you can keep and hold dear to your heart for years to come, so I take this job seriously. It’s my goal for your dancer to have fun during our sessions together, capture their many talents, and deliver the highest quality possible so you can treasure each stage of your dancers’ development. Recital Pictures will take place in the Spring Semester and I absolutely can’t wait to capture Red Door Dance Academy’s dancers on camera!

xo,

Kendal