Zion Center for Worship and the Arts
Resurrection Dance Ministry Teaching Faculty
Teresa Gardner
RDM Director / Artistic Director
In addition to her role as Director for The Resurrection Dance Ministry and Zion Center for Worship and the Arts, Teresa continues to oversee, teach, and choreograph for all of the Worship Dance Classes.
Linda Sloan
Ministry Associate/Operations Manager
In addition to her role as Ministry Associate and Operations Manager for the Resurrection Dance Ministry and Zion Center for Worship and the Arts, Linda provides oversight for the classes and also teaches worship dance to our younger students.
Abbey Koenig has danced with the Resurrection Dance Ministry (RDM) since 2007. In 2015, she began teaching and choreographing for the ministry, which sparked a love for both that has stayed with her to this day. Abbey has had the unique opportunity of traveling with the ministry both nationally and internationally, including five trips to Israel. These mission trips to Israel instilled a deep love in her heart to minister to the people there, and she hopes and prays for another opportunity to do so in the future.
In addition to dancing with RDM, Abbey also trained in ballet, pointe, jazz, modern, contemporary, hip-hop, and tap at King David Christian Conservatory in Charlotte, NC. She has had the wonderful opportunity of attending several summer dance programs that advanced her technical training including Ballet Magnificat!, Burklyn Ballet Theater, Charlotte School of Ballet, and Ballet 5:8. She continued her ballet training in 2019 in the conservatory program at Ballet 5:8 School of the Arts, a Christian ballet company and school located near Chicago, IL. Following that, Abbey joined Arrows International Dance Company in Edmond, OK for a season where she grew both technically and spiritually, using the gift of dance to minister to the United States and the world.
Abbey is a wonderful addition to the Teaching Staff and Assistant Leadership of RDM/ZCWA. She has a heart to worship and praise the one true King through dance, and pours herself into inspiring that same love in the students she teaches.
Abbey Koenig
Teacher/Choreographer, Ministry Assistant
Elizabeth Hoff
Class and Teacher Assistant, Teacher
Elizabeth has been dancing with RDM/ZCWA since 2018. After faithfully serving as a Class Assistant/Teacher for several years, she now also serves the Lord and this ministry as an excellent Choreographer and Teacher. Outside of the ministry, Elizabeth is a high school junior at Greyfriars Classical Academy. Elizabeth loves Jesus with all her heart and strives to live for Him. She hopes to be an encouragement and shine God's light through everything she does. (Note from the Director: She does! And she does an excellent job!)
Cathy Lash
Ballet, Core Conditioning
Cathy began her training under the auspices of the Royal Academy of Dancing from her mother, Marion S. Mills, a former professional ballet dancer at the Saddler's Wells in London. Cathy performed professionally in a variety of theatre productions and was a founding member of the Shreveport Metropolitan Ballet Company in Louisiana. She served on the company's Board of Directors, while her husband, Mike, served as company president for several years. While in Louisiana, she earned her B.A. in Communication from LSU. She has studied under teachers such as Robert Joffrey, David Howard, Gus Giordano and Joe Tremaine. And, while living in Madrid, Spain, she studied Flamenco dance. Through the years, Cathy has trained many students for their Royal Academy of Dancing exams.
Her studies at the world-renowned Cooper Clinic in Dallas, TX began a lifelong desire to greater understand the anatomy and biomechanics of movement, which she enjoys sharing with her students. Cathy teaches the Core Conditioning class, designed for the dancer and everyone desiring a healthy body and strength for life's journey. Her interest in movement goes beyond the dance studio. After five years of study, Cathy, Mike and their three children, Christa, Michael and Sarah, received their black belts in American Mixed Martial Arts. Cathy and Mike, who is now third-degree, helped to train U.S. Naval Sea Cadets, from throughout the country, in self-defense.
Over the past 30 years, she has graciously shared her technical expertise in a variety of venues throughout the Charlotte, NC area. A beautiful servant's heart and uncompromising expectations for each student's technical best, mark this woman of God.
Cathy and her husband operate Lash Engineering in Matthews, NC and love spending time with their three children, three grandchildren, and their families!
Amy Ray
Guest Choreographer/Teacher
Amy has been associated with The Resurrection Dance Ministry and Zion Center for Worship and the Arts, for the past 23 years (since she was 3 years old!). During that time she has been a student, choreographer, and teacher. Amy has also participated in several of RDM/ZCWA’s Dance Missions Trips to Israel and in the USA. In addition to her work with RDM/ZCWA, she has also learned from various artists including former professionals from Ad Deum Dance Company, Doug Varone Dance Company, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Cirque Du Soleil, New York Ballet, Jose Limón Dance Company, and Betsheva Dance Company. Amy has continued to study modern techniques and teaches Horton, Graham, and Duncan based modern, in addition to incorporating Bartenieff Fundamentals Patterns of Total Body Connectivity. She has also studied ballroom, Latin dance, and other fusion styles. RDM/ZCWA is always thankful when Amy can find time to bring her extraordinary choreographic skills and excellent teaching to the ministry - when she's not working very full time as an experienced Tax Associate with a prestigious Charlotte accounting firm.
Lydia Harvey
Guest Choreographer/Teacher
Lydia joined the Resurrection Dance Ministry in 2012 and describes her time here as being a rich and life-changing experience. She has accompanied the ministry on several trips, from Washington DC to Pennsylvania, California, and once to Israel in 2013, which she is praying she can do again sometime in the near future! In 2022 she graduated with a degree in Graphic Design from Central Piedmont Community College and is always looking for opportunities to use her artistic gifts to do God's work and give Him glory - in and outside of dance ministry. A quiet passion of hers is to take her love of writing and art into the webcomic industry, where she can tell stories that point people to God on a platform with a very wide outreach.
As a choreographer, Lydia describes each piece as being its own adventure, as she never knows when the Lord will give her inspiration. "It usually starts with a song and a picture. As for what goes in between, I have no idea, which is where the real work and prayer comes in." Despite the challenges, she is always thankful for the Lord's guidance and the help of her fellow dance ministers whenever she needs assistance and advice.
Chase McLean
Guest Choreographer/Teacher
Chase has been pursuing dance training for over seven years and has been with ZCWA since she was 13. During her Senior Year of High School, she studied at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston Salem with a focus in Contemporary dance. While currently teaching and learning with ZCWA, Chase is pursuing an Associate in Arts Degree in Dance at Central Piedmont Community College. Following graduation in the summer of 2023, Chase will be attending UNC Charlotte focusing on Dance Education and Business.
Kate Richter
Core Conditioning - Substitute Instructor
Kate Richter joined the RDM/ZCWA dance ministry in 2018. Dancing during her growing up years, her heart to worship, serve, and share the Lord through dance has continued with her still today. Since 2018 she has had the blessing of participating with ZCWA in the adult worship and core conditioning classes, a Dance Missions Trip to Israel, as well as in several celebrations of the Jewish Feasts. In fall of 2022 she had the opportunity to further study core conditioning, and now enjoys serving as a substitute Core Conditioning Instructor. Her heart is to worship the Lord in all she does, and to see others encouraged in Him.
"Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God...how great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (John 1:12, 1 John 3:1)
Dayna Harvey
Ministry Videographer
Dayna Harvey is an aspiring, freelance videographer and former dancer with Zion Center for Worship and the Arts, with whom she’s ministered alongside for over ten years. Raised as a homeschooler here in Charlotte, North Carolina, she grew up with a deep love for directing attention to God via intricate, creative storytelling. She studied Theatre Arts at Central Piedmont Community College—until she picked up a camera and fell in love with the art of using visuals, not just words, to paint a picture of God’s glory. Since then, she has delved into self-studying the craft, interned one semester with Digital Spark Studios, and now simultaneously works part-time while striving to hone her videography skills, increase her equipment, and plans to create her own business within the film industry.
Dayna has created several promos for The Resurrection Dance Ministry, helps document behind-the-scenes footage, photographs, and hopes to be involved in larger, ministry-based projects in the near future. She has also worked on music videos, interviews, and teaching videos for the Rainbows of Hope ministry in South Carolina (a branch of WEC [Worldwide Evangelism for Christ] International). She has high hopes to be a film director one day but is currently content to pray through each project and see which ways the Lord leads in it all.