DCK Artistic Staff

Cooper Rust, Artistic Director

Cooper hails from Columbia, South Carolina, USA, and trained in classical ballet, jazz, modern, tap, and musical theatre for more than fifteen years beginning with Ann Brodie and finishing at schools including the School of American Ballet and the Harid Conservatory. While dancing professionally with three American ballet companies, she acquired bachelors’ degrees in Dance Performance and Choreography as well as European History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she was recently awarded Alumna of the Year for the College of Fine Arts.

In addition to this honor, Ms. Rust was awarded the Centennial Community Teaching Award by the Royal Academy of Dance in London, where she achieved marks of distinction in her Post-Graduate Teaching Certification as well as receiving distinctions in the Intermediate, Advanced I, and Advanced II ballet examinations.

She holds a Pilates certification through DK Body Balance and is currently the Executive Director of the not-for-profit organization Artists for Africa, which holds arts programmes serving more than 1000 children throughout Nairobi. While her journey to Kenya originally began with teaching ballet through the Anno’s Africa project in the Kibera and Mathare slums, she has now found homes in Dance Centre Kenya’s Hardy, Rosslyn, and Lavington studios as the Artistic Director, teaching Kenya’s up-and- coming brightest stars in ballet and other areas of dance.

Caroline Slot Wamaya, General Manager

Caroline grew up in the Netherlands where she spent her free time training in rhythmical gymnastics, taking dance classes and being part of musical theatre productions at school. In 2003 she joined the Amsterdam School of the Arts for a one year preparation course for a bachelor program in Dance. After this course she joined a dance teacher training program for two years, followed by four years of training in Jazz and Musical Dance for which she obtained a Bachelor of Dance. She received classes in ballet, jazz, contemporary dance, tap dance, singing, musical theatre and acting and worked with directors/choreographers Wies Bloemen, Eddy Habbema and David Greaves. In her last year she did an internship with Musical Theatre Company Briza, performing musical theatre productions for children, and was part of an exchange program with The Kenya Performing Arts Group. After teaching dance in many different schools and projects in the Netherlands, she came back to Kenya and started Ghetto Exposed, a non-profit which offers dance and photography training to talented young people from underprivi- leged communities and aims to build the audience and create jobs in the field. Caroline has been working for Dance Centre Kenya since January 2016 and was promoted to General Manager in 2019.

Antonia Mukandie, Costume Mistress

Antonia (Tonie) is an established fashion designer based in Nairobi. She joined the Industry in 2012 after completing her diploma in Fashion from Vera Fashion Institute. Since then Antonia has worked with renowned designers such as Koki, Katungulu Mwendwa, African Mystique, and Betty Vanetti. Most recently, she has started her own label - ‘Tonie Mukandie Fashion House.’