Amy is a passionate performer that carries that enthusiasm into her teaching, as seen in her personal teaching statement. “As a teacher of dance, I hope to leave my students with an appetite to learn, grow, and appreciate more in order to develop as a mover, artist, performer, and person. Whether I teach my students every day, once a week, or for one master class, I want to leave them with hunger to absorb knowledge in every aspect of dance. I hope to instill eagerness to be a lifelong learner with their minds, bodies, and spirits. It is my goal as a teacher to bring forth encouraging energy and focus to mold a two-way street between my students and myself. My hope as a teacher is to provide my students with direction to a healthy atmosphere, where my voice and energy can inspire and guide growth and creativity.” Brief examples include the following: In the spirit of Christmas, Amy performed the Sugar Plum Fairy variation from the Christmas classic, The Nutcracker. She then followed her performance with a synopses of The Nutcracker, a short storytelling of the birth of ballet, including an explanation of why Ballet terms are in French and examples of their corresponding English terms. Amy asks the students questions such as what did you notice about how I held my body? What kind of dance was this? How did the dance make you feel? After the students describe characteristics of the dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Amy allows the students a chance to feel pointe shoes, a Nutcracker doll, and a tutu.

Amy Bramlett Turner received her early training from Edmond Cooper and Andrea Pierkowski in Hot Springs, Arkansas. She completed her BFA in Ballet and Modern Dance as a Nordan Fine Arts Scholar at Texas Christian University in 2011 and her Masters of Arts in Dance Education at the University of North Carolina- Greensboro in 2019. She is a proud graduate of Hot Springs High School, where she returned to build the Hot Springs School District’s 7-12 Dance Studies Program in 2014 in order to give back to the very community that raised her.  She also holds the title of Secondary Arts Coordinator for the Hot Springs School District where she works to unite all 7-12 art programs and coordinates shows, events, collaborations within the school and the community. Amy earned the title of 2019 Teacher of the Year for Hot Springs World Class High School. She is President of the Arkansas Dance Network, where she spearheaded the first Arkansas Middle and High School Dance Festivals, and Professional Developments. She helped create the Arkansas Dance Standards and has written curriculum for Model Cornerstone Assessments for the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards. She was featured as a Teacher Moving Education Forward in Arkansas by Craig O’Neill in January of 2023. Most recently, she was chosen as the inaugural Fine Arts Teacher of the Year for the state of Arkansas in the spring of 2024. 

Amy truly believes dance has the power to create change- change in the student, relationships, the audience, oneself and in social injustice. She works tirelessly to use dance education to build student, organization, and community partnerships within Hot Springs and the state of Arkansas.  

Since 2014, Amy has been an Artist in Education with the Arkansas Arts Council and the Dance Director for Hot Springs School District’s 7-12 Dance Program of over 160 students yearly, and where she is the founder of the Hot Springs Dance Troupe. These young dancers study ballet, jazz, and modern during and after school and have performed frequently in the Hot Springs community with organizations such as the Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce, Oaklawn Racing and Gaming, Hot Springs Rotary clubs and countless other community organizations and fundraisers, and were one of three groups chosen nationally to perform at the National Consortium of State School Boards Association Conference in 2024. 

In this position, Amy has led the program to fundraise over $100,000 for dance shoes, costumes, class materials, workshops, attendance of performance tours in order for students to have access to a quality dance education without exclusion because of financial means. In addition, she continuously trained the Hot Springs Dance Troupe and led them to raise over $50,000 to be able to take thirteen dancers to perform with the Stars of Tomorrow performance tour in Austria, Germany and Italy in 2018, and again raise the funds to be able to take the next generations of students to attend the Stars of Tomorrow tour in Austria in 2022 and 2025.  Her dance troupe is only the third public school dance program in the United States to be invited on this tour in its history. The Hot Springs Dance Troupe is consistently sought after in Arkansas to perform her original choreography, specifically her works inspired by social justice themes. 

As the current President of the Arkansas Dance Network (ADN), Amy has successfully led the organization to become the state-affiliate of the National Dance Education Organization. As president, she has led ADN to connect dance educators and programs across the state of Arkansas by establishing the first annual Arkansas High School Dance Festival (2019) and the first annual Arkansas Dance Teacher Professional Development Day (2020) and the first annual Arkansas Middle School Dance Festival with the ADN Board in spring 2022.

Amy believes in giving back to her community and works consistently to ensure that she is constantly bringing new classes, performances, and choreography to her students and all community partners. Throughout her professional performance and teaching career, Amy has been a proud ambassador of Hot Springs and Arkansas, and always planned to return to her hometown to help mold the youth into active community members and citizens of this world. Her lifelong goal is to establish a legacy of dance experiences and knowledge to her hometown and connect dance students and educators across the state and world. She believes dance can help students define their individual voice, increase self-confidence and develop a sense of belonging. Amy truly believes movement has the power to create change and works tirelessly to build community partnerships through dance education.