Noelle Cotler

When she's not at school at Byron Bergen, senior Noelle Cotler is most likely in the studio---her favorite place----for her favorite passion----dance.
 
"It's a big passion of mine," she says. "I hope to pursue it for the rest of my life. If I'm having a bad day in school I feel like this is an area where I can let it out without getting upset. I can just come into an empty studio and pour it out through dance." Noelle teaches what she learns. For 12 hours a week, she serves as a mentor for other dancers at Images in Dance, her mother's dance studio in Batavia.

"It's beautiful watching her perform," says Robin Cotler. "It makes me very proud. You sometimes get lost in what she's doing because she has a way of pulling you in when she's performing." Noelle's so talented, she's earning kudos from the best in the business. Last summer, she was one of just 20 young dancers from around the country chosen to participate in the prestigious Jacob's Pillow Jazz Program.  In 2004....she attended the New York State School of the Arts Program, and a piece was choreographed just for her by a faculty member of the Broadway Dance Center in New York.

"I really just feel like as long as I'm dancing somewhere that I'll be happy," says Noelle, "So I don't know if I'd see meyself in a modern-based company in New York, traveling in Europe dancing, being on Broadway. I just know that whereever it does take me, I will be happy dancing."