Heather Eilerts was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas. She began dancing at age 3, but decided to take her training more seriously around the age of 12 when she began training with Jill Landrith and performing with Metropolitan Ballet of Wichita. Heather still continues to perform with Metropolitan Ballet in their annual production of the Nutcracker, as well as performing freelance at various events around town with other local dancers and choreographers. She earned her BFA in Dance from Wichita State University in 2014. After teaching and performing locally for almost a year, Heather received a grant from Kansas Cultural Trust to spend one month in Germany taking class and attending workshops all over the country in 2015, and then spent 6 months dance in San Francisco, California. Heather then moved to Southern California to earn her MFA in Dance from University of California Irvine in 2018 before returning home to start her own local contemporary dance company called Wheat State Dance Collective, which was created to provide opportunities for local dancers graduating from college. That same year, she began teaching at Wichita State University as an Adjunct Instructor and at Midwest Dance Mechanix before being hired as Assistant Professor of Dance at Friends University. Her goal is to teach her students not just how to dance, but also to learn how to love themselves through dance. She hopes that her students leave with not only an appreciation for dance, but an appreciation for themselves as artists and humans.
Education:
BFA, Wichita State University; MFA, University of California Irvine