Michelle Barrios- Director / Owner
Michelle Barrios founded Michelle’s Dance X-Plosion in 2005, so that children and their families would have a loving environment to dance. Michelle prides herself on having a personal, caring, positive dance experience for all who join the MDX family.
The success of Michelle, her staff, and students has resulted in many regional and national top overall and special awards. These awards include regional and national title awards, top studio, choreography, technical excellence, showmanship, many judges’ choice awards, and scholarship recipients.
Michelle has choreographed several musical productions; including Grease, Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella, and Bye, Bye Birdie. Dancers she has trained can be found performing in Disney World, Disneyland, the NFL, NBA, and working as dancers and award winning choreographers.
Monica Barrios – Assistant Director
Monica Barrios grew up in the dance studio where started her competition debut at age 4 and is trained in Tap, Jazz, Lyrical and Hip Hop. At the age of 18 Monica became a professional cheerleader for the Oakland Raiderettes where she continued with the team for 4 consecutive years. While on the Raiderettes Monica was selected as Co - Captain and Captain and was fortunate enough to perform in London as a second year vet, promoting NFL International Series and Mexico City her fourth season, promoting NFL Mexico.
Monica not only has the love to perform but has the love to teach others and watch them grow as not only dancers but people. Monica's passion for dance and attention to detail has resulted in her dancers being awarded many overall, special, and choreography awards. Monica has done work for Otterbox, Salesforce, AAA, Major League Baseball, Wells Fargo and has also been featured in Dance Spirit Magazine.
Aside from the studio, Monica is an Accountability Coach for the brand Sideline Prep where she coaches and molds aspiring hopefuls to be Professional Dancers / Cheerleaders in the NFL, NBA, Semi Pro and College Level. Monica also dabbled in the High School level where she coached the Varsity Dance team for 5 years. Monica loves being a part of the MDX family and is instilling her passion into the dancers she trains.
Gabriel Barrios - Instructor
Gabriel (originally from Southern California) began dancing at the age of 15 & quickly realized that there was absolutely nothing he enjoyed more than working hard in a studio to perform/compete on stage. Starting out as a self taught dancer watching YouTube & Music Videos he’d never thought dance would take him where it has. Soon after getting comfortable he found a few studios to train in all over Southern California from San Diego - LA. After spending the years he could in the traditional competition world with a studio he branched out as he wanted to continue his performing.
Gabriel has performed under LA choreographer Liz Imperio as well as San Diego based choreographers Keone Madrid & Kevin Nguyen. As well as being a part San Diego's professional hip hop teams Super Galactic Beat Manipulators 'SGBM' & Choreo Cookies. Gabriel has been teaching in various studios since he was 17 years old, getting the ability to figure out what he truly had to offer his students while pursuing his passion.
Gabriel had never imagined his passion could lead him to teach in many studios around the states & even some internationally but getting to share what he knows and learn something new from every teaching experience is why he loves our field. In between teaching in studios & training Gabriel also toured internationally with Disney & FELD Entertainment as a dancer in one of their Disney Live! Shows.
Aside from his work as a dancer, teacher, & choreographer Gabe has traveled alongside some of America’s most favored dance competitions “Kids Artistic Revue” (KAR) & Rainbow National Dance Competition as a Competition Lead & Production Assistant for many years. He is also a photographer/videographer and has merged his passion for dance with capturing it in both forms & is currently working with Art Of Movement Dance Convention as well producing a lot of their social media content. Many people remember Gabriel for his felicitous presence, artistry & passion for dance as a whole.
Kara Richey - Instructor
Kara was born and raised in Brea, California and has trained in dance for nineteen years in the southern California area. She successfully graduated from Dance Precisions after training under MKR Dance Productions for nine years. During her last two seasons at Dance Precisions, Kara taught and composed choreography for their competition team.
Kara graduated in 2019 from San Jose State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Dance. While studying in the San Jose State dance program, Kara learned from and worked with artists such as Kyle Abraham, Kara Davis, Mike Esperanza, and Doug Varone.
She is currently working with two competitive dance studios teaching genres such as hip hop, contemporary, jazz, lyrical, modern, musical theatre, and tap. While continuing to teach, she is also training with Commonality, a collegiate hip hop team, as well as auditioning and free lancing for different dance opportunities and projects in the Bay Area.
Rosselyn Ramirez -Ballet Instructor
Rosselyn Ramirez was born and received her training in Caracas, Venezuela. In 2005 she joined Ballet National de Caracas Teatro Teresa Carreño. In 2009 she was promoted to principal dancer. Her repertoire included "Le Corsaire", "Esmeralda" and "The Nutcracker" and in contemporary ballets such as "Amor", "Brujo", "Passion", and "Texturas". Ms. Ramirez has performed in Uruguay and performed as a guest artist at the 21st Festival of Ballet in Havana, Cuba. She joined Diablo Ballet in 2011 and danced in works by George Balanchine, Tina Kay Bohnstedt, Val Caniparoli, Robert Dekkers, Danielle Rowe, Ben Stevenson, Christopher Stowell, and George Balanchine's Apollo.
She has had works created for her by Robin Dekkers, Sean Kelly, Gary Masters and KT Nelson. Ms. Ramirez has appeared as a guest lecturer at UC Berkeley's BAMPHA sharing her dance journey to USA. In 2019, Ms. Ramirez retired from the stage and assumed the position of PEEK Outreach Associate Director, where she works with under-served school children and youth incarcerated in the Juvenile Justice System, teaching them self esteem, group process, and expressing oneself through movement. In 2015 and 2016 Ms. Ramirez assisted to Dance Teacher Summit at Long Beach, LA. where she obtained motivational and inspirational tools through interactive workshops led by world renowned dance professionals and educators. In 2019 Ms. Ramirez became certified at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy on Teacher certification Level 1 and in 2020 became certified on Progressing Ballet Technique.
Currently, Ms Ramirez is the Peek Outreach Associate Director for Diablo Ballet, (Walnut Creek, CA); Ballet Director/Teacher at Expressions Dance and Arts, (Pleasanton, CA); Ballet Teacher at San Ramon Valley Dance Academy (San Ramon, CA) were she teaches dancers of all ages and skill levels focusing on classical ballet technique, terminology and stylization. Her students increased body awareness, physical strength, stamina, flexibility, elongation, balance and musicality. She encourages personal development, goal setting, nudge limitations both mentally & physically to instill a love for creative expression and a passion for the art of movement.