Nikki & Ken Merchut - Owners

Ken and Nikki Merchut, owners of Momentum Performing Arts, are a husband-and-wife team raising their three children right alongside the studio they love. Shortly after getting married in 2016, they took over MPA and began building a space centered on family, growth, and a true passion for dance.

Nikki grew up dancing and discovered early on that her heart was in teaching and inspiring children. She trained and taught at studios across the region—from Buffalo Grove to Crystal Lake—and even made the move from Ohio to pursue her dream of leading a dance program in the Crystal Lake community. Owning a studio had always been her goal, and today she brings that dream to life every day at MPA. In addition to the studio, Nikki is also the Director of the Maine South Orchesis Dance Company. Her experience spans teaching all ages and levels, coaching dance teams, judging competitions, and continuing her education to stay current and innovative in her craft.

Ken came from a service writing background and found his passion within the studio through customer service, leadership, and building strong relationships with families. He plays a key role in creating a welcoming, organized, and supportive environment for everyone who walks through the doors.

Together, Ken and Nikki truly live and breathe MPA—working, teaching, and raising their family within the same community they’ve built for so many others. Their goal is simple: to create a place where every dancer feels at home, grows in confidence, and is inspired to reach their full potential.

KATELIN SECOR is a graduate from Columbia College Chicago. Where she graduated with a degree in theater and dance. This is her 2nd year performing with the traveling dance company, The Chicago Honey Bear Dancers. A traveling song and dance variety show that focuses on all styles of dance such as tap, contemporary, jazz, broadway and hip hop. But has also appeared in the works most recent works of choreogrpahers such as Willow Faygenholtz and Emma Hadden.

She also has studied and worked with numerous youth theater companies such as Citadel Theater Company, Previsions Theater Company, and Story Catchers theater company, composing and producing youth productions through out the city of chicago. She's very happy to be working and educating the youth of the chicago land area in the field of dance and theater, in hopes to inspire her students through the arts.

Norah Flaherty began her dancing in Oswego, IL at Dance With Flair, LLC. She trained in ballet, pointe, jazz, contemporary, lyrical, musical theatre, and tap, and has over  5 years of experience teaching these styles to every age and every ability.  While at the studio, she aided classes and choreographed for showcases, and recitals, and danced through over 20 theatre productions in the Chicago Suburbs. She believes in the importance of sharing the arts with the community, and also taught classes for elderly individuals at Open Door, and helped with the program "Dancing with Special Stars" to help special needs students enjoy the arts. She then took her dancing to North Central College in Naperville, IL, where she graduated with a degree in Theatre and a Minor in dance, studying under a variety of instructors including Cindy Hartigan, and Dyanna Daniels, while performing a variety of shows and taking classes on-and-off at Lou Conte in Chicago. During her first year at North Central she had the opportunity to study under Dmitri Peskov and be a part of a contemporary dance ensemble that produced the show: Fragments: a Theatrical Dance Experience. Norah was a 3 time contemporary dance choreographer for the Cardinal Dance Company, and danced in a variety of musical theatre, tap, jazz, modern, and contemporary performances for the company.  Her last year 2 years at North Central she shifted her dance focus more towards choreographing, as she was a preceptor for college dance classes, co-choregraphed a one-night production in the style of Bob Fosse, and began teaching tap and creative movement classes at the School of Performing Arts. When Miss Norah isn’t teaching dance or theatre, she can be found coaching college and high school speech teams, auditioning and performing in theatre productions in Chicago, stretching with her cat, and taking aerial arts classes for fun! 

Olivia Frayder is a Chicago based dancer, teacher, and artist. Olivia started dancing at the age of 12 training in various styles such as tap, jazz, ballet, musical theatre, hip hop, pom, and contemporary. Following high school graduation, Olivia attended Western Kentucky University where she received a Bachelor of Arts in Dance as well as minoring in Clinical and Community Behavioral Health. Throughout her time in college, she studied topics such as jazz, tap, modern, ballet, dance anatomy and kinesiology, dance history, dance pedagogy, and many more. She was also a member of the WKU Dance Company, and additionally served as a rehearsal director for company rehearsals and a teaching assistant for jazz courses. Olivia has also experienced additional training at intensives with New Dialect (Nashville, TN), Water Street Dance (Milwaukee, WI), and Giordano Dance Chicago (Chicago, IL).