Laurel Darcey was born and raised in San Diego and discovered her love and appreciation for dance at the age of 9, where she began training at Karan Murray Dance Studio and Eveoke Dance Theatre. She has been trained in jazz, ballet, lyrical, modern, tap, and hip hop. Throughout her years of dancing, thoughts remained in the back of her head about her future as an educator, whether that was in dance or elementary school. After graduating from Mount Carmel High School in 2001, she left her hometown to attend California State University Long Beach, after making their highly credible dance team. While at Long Beach, Laurel trained at Jimmy Defores and Millennium Dance Complex. After returning to San Diego, Laurel began coaching the Mount Carmel HS Dance Troupe, leading them to place in the top 8 of their lyrical category at the 2006 USA’s Dance/Drill Nationals. Laurel constantly pushes her team to think outside the box all while creating change in their dancing. She is currently working towards her teaching credential in Physical Education in Dance in hopes to educate dancers at the high school level in the future. Laurel enjoys teaching at two local studios as well as coaching the Dance Troupe. She would not trade a thing about her life at the moment and believes that if you love what you do, you will be successful.