In 1980 Cianne let some friends from work convince her to join them on an outing to the very popular Funny Farm Saloon on a Friday night. She watched in awe as dancers Two-Stepped and Ten-Stepped and Waltzed, all moving together in perfect time with the music… and she was hooked! Upon learning that there were free dance lessons at Wild Bill’s Saloon, she began taking classes there. She picked up the dances quickly and won a Beginning level 2-Step competition when she had only been dancing for two weeks.

The other students soon began to ask for her help during the classes, and she discovered she had a gift for teaching, and very soon was asked to co-teach at that club. Five months later the Funny Farm Saloon offered her a job teaching for them, and the rest is history. She taught there three nights a week for 7 years, and quickly became Bakersfield’s premier C/W dance instructor, teaching at dance conventions and judging competitions all over California and Nevada, and eventually choreographing and directing the Funny Farm Saloon Dancers performing team.

In the mid-80s Cianne directed her focus toward West Coast Swing and founded the Bakersfield Boppers Swing Dance Club and the Bakersfield Boppers Performing Team to promo this exciting dance style. At that time she also began her association with Skippy Blair and the Golden State Dance Teachers Association, and spent many years driving to LA every week to continue learning her craft. With the musical shift to Big Band in the mid-90s, Cianne enthusiastically jumped into Retro, East Coast, Lindy Swing and Charleston, eventually choreographing exciting routines for her Bakersfield Boppers Lindy Hoppers performing team of young people from 13-22 years of age.

After that, the next four years were spent in a hot love affair with Latin dancing, including Salsa, Cha-Cha, Cumbia and Merengue which she taught at Rockin' Rodeo's Metropolis Lounge, as well as various dance studios in town. For the last few years Cianne has been having a fling with Foxtrot, happily and nostalgically dancing to the songs her father used to sing to her when she was a little girl. Hard pressed to pick a favorite, she loves all forms of dance and enthusiastically encourages everyone she meets to "give it a whirl".

Up until June 2005, Cianne choreographed and directed a performing team of intermediate and advanced level students who ranged in age from 17 to 60 and performed for the Marketplace Summer Concerts, Relay for Life and many other charity events. Due to time constraints (and the difficulty finding and keeping male partners), the team (called 'Music in Our Soles') disbanded, but the dancers all remain close-knit in our little dance community and look back fondly at their time on the performing team.
Widely respected for her ability to teach solid social dance basics, Cianne specializes in leading & following techniques and diagnostic skills, and is quickly able to spot a dancer’s problem areas and suggest a change in technique, often resulting in immediate improvement.

In her 27 years of experience teaching dancing, Cianne's love for people and for dance has always shined through in all her classes, reflected in her fun-loving approach to teaching and her emphasis on technique. If you’ve wanted to learn to dance or to improve your current dance techniques, Cianne is the instructor to call!