Staff
Janei Maynard
Executive Director
As founding Executive Director, Janei works to create a space where everyone feels safe & empowered to express themselves and connect with themselves & each other in her hometown of Aurora. Under her leadership, 5E has grown into a thriving creative home for Aurora youth, with consistent gains in students' personal growth, academic performance, and social skills. She has worked in hip hop equity, hip hop education, and hip hop feminism, as a dancer, musician, and scholar since 2011.
Janei holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity with Honors, as well as a Master of Arts degree in Communication. Both degrees were earned from Stanford University, where she focused her research on hip hop’s power to help Black and brown youth tell their own stories and shape their self-perception, which is work that remains the throughline in her teaching today.
Janei began her career at Stanford University's Institute for Diversity in the Arts, supporting student artists from historically silenced backgrounds. She now teaches full-time as an 8th grade English teacher, in addition to her role at 5E. In 2025-26, her students achieved the highest proficiency rate among all English teachers in her school and top reading scores across her entire school network. From 2022 to 2024, she also served as Co-Director of Prevention & Education at The Blue Bench, a Colorado nonprofit, where she led sexual violence prevention programming reaching 3,000+ middle and high school students annually and trained a team of educators in trauma-informed curricula.
As a freelance creative director, Janei has choreographed and danced opening performances for artists including Ty Dolla $ign, Sevyn Streeter, and 2Chainz, as well as co-directed BLACKStage Presents The Wiz in 2018 at Stanford University. She has worked as a director and choreographer for several youth & adult dance teams across multiple genres, including Catch A Fyah Caribbean Dance team and Set It Off Step Squad. She was also a founding member of Next Generation Phenomenon dance crew, founded in Aurora in 2011, which would later evolve into COhe One Motive. She performed & competed with and choreographed for COhe One Motive at a local and national level from 2018 to 2020. She continues to compete individually in hip hop battles across Colorado.
Jamal “Moon” Johnson
Instructor (Krump, Grooves)
Jamal "Moon" Johnson is a multifaceted artist renowned for his dance expertise. Moon is a dedicated dancer, choreographer, and creative director with expertise in hip-hop and krump. He has over 20 years of training and performance experience, blending raw emotional storytelling with technical precision. Moon is experienced in teaching foundations, choreographing, and community mentorship. He is most known for a strong presence in the battle scene.
Jamal "Moon" Johnson bridges the gap between film and dance, using his skills in dance, media editing, and directing to showcase the dynamic nature of dance in depicting emotions and storytelling.
Vidya “Seven” Shaker
instructor (House, Ballet, funk Styles)
Vidya Shaker is a multidisciplinary artist from Maryland completing her BFA in Dance Performance from Arizona State University. Vidya is currently focused on her training in Hip-Hop and various street styles at Rennie Harris University, completing certification for 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training, and competing in Vogue Performance battles at Balls through her affiliation with Kiki House of Felicity.
When she’s not busy with dance related activities, Vidya likes to draw, paint, and make music! Vidya is excited to build, grow, and collaborate with artists of all mediums and experience levels as she continues to discover her place in the art world.
TAY CLIFFORD
instructor (latin rhythms, funk styles, hip hop choreography)
Tay is originally from Southern California and many parts of the southwest United States. With nearly a decade of dance experience in street styles (mainly under the umbrella of funk styles) and various Latin rhythms, he holds dance history and a love for music as core principles in his dance.
Tay is a member of Boogietá, based in Bogotá, Colombia and active in the Denver dance community. Tay regularly battles, holds/attends cyphers, collaborates with artists for performances, and has hosted the Street Sweep battle.
Anthony “Bboy Chopz” Le
instructor (breaking, tricking)
Bboy Chopz was born and raised in Aurora, Colorado. Fifteen years ago, he started breaking on cardboard in his hometown. Now, he has traveled the world competing in professional battles and doing shows on big stages with 10 years of dance education under his belt.
Jordan “JoyBoy“ Smith
instructor (Animation, hip hop choreography)
Jordan "JoyBoy" Smith, born in Denver, Colorado, is an artist who studies the art of the movement of the human body. JoyBoy found dance in middle school at the age of 14 with friends in his class. The more he danced, the more he wanted to learn more about the culture of dance and the wide range of styles that it offers.
He has knowledge of various alternative hip-hop dance styles such as Animation, tutting, waving, robot, and Krump. He has performed in and out of state, including the Denver nuggets pre-game show and auditioned for Americas Got Talent.
GRACE ARAKAWA
Executive Administrator
Grace Arakawa has been dancing since she was 4 years old, training in a variety of styles, including contemporary, jazz, hip-hop, and ballet. She began choreographing while on a studio dance competition team and continued to choreograph during her first year of college, where she taught several classes of hip-hop-based choreography. Grace plans to minor in dance at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, aiming to continue teaching and choreographing dance throughout her college years. She is also a member of 5E’s professional dance team, M.O.B.
In addition to her dance pursuits, Grace is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer. She is pursuing studies in Film Scoring and Electronic Music Production at Berklee, focusing on making music for film.
Dazzmin Brown
instructor (Contemporary)
Dazzmin Brown (she/her) was born and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. She is an interdisciplinary dancer that wants to show the importance of knowing the history, where the movement comes from, freestyle, expressing the idea of being yourself, and healing through movement. Since she was eight years old, she has trained in various styles of dance; hip hop, jazz, modern, vogue, heels, contemporary, and ballet. She exudes a blend of precise yet fearless style.
After graduating from Colorado State University with her Bachelors of Arts in Dance in 2019, she became a member of the International Association of Blacks in Dance and attended their seminar in January 2020 and 2024. In 2021, she became a member of ImmaBreathe Dance Company, directed by Janelle Ginestra, Mary-Ann Chavez and Monika Felice Smith. She was also a part of Lume Dance, directed by Mary-Ann Chavez and Monika Felice Smith and they were both contemporary fusion dance companies based in LA.
Currently, she lives in Denver, dances with Life/Art Dance Ensemble, teaches community classes and is an active member of the ballroom scene. She has hosted workshops and sessions for the community and travels often to make a name for herself. Outside of that she enjoys modeling, designing, and creating. She is also working towards getting her yoga certification and doing a certification program with AZDanceMed and has hopes to go back to school within the next year so she can eventually become a dance physical therapist.
She is happy to be a new faculty member of 5th Element Center for Dance and looks forward to collaborating and creating with the studio.