Meet The Director

Mailia Stokes

Mailia Stokes has over 20 years of dance and dance ministry experience.  She began her dance training by taking classes during her senior year through the Dekalb School of the Arts at Avondale High school.  She attended the Georgia Institute of Technology where she was briefly a member of the Gold Rush Dance Team and Southern Polytechnic State University where she was an inaugural member of the Sparkling Emeralds Dance Team. Mailia furthered her dance training by studying at local Atlanta dance studios. Over the last 20 years, she has been blessed to receive teaching from several world-renowned professional dancers and dance ministers. She continues to work on polishing her gift by taking classes in Ballet, Modern, Jazz, Lyrical, African, and Hip Hop, and by attending dance ministry conferences as her schedule allows.

 

Realizing that God had a specific plan for her dancing, Mailia founded the dance ministry at Saint Philip A.M.E. Church in 2000 and served as the director for 14 years.  In 2008, she graduated as a licensed Minister of Dance from the Eagles International Training Institute. Additionally, she was blessed to dance as a member of Passion for Worship Dance Ministries International for four years.  She has served as the Georgia coordinator for the National Liturgical Dance Network since 2012.

Mailia’s teaching experience began as an instructor at a local recreation center in 1999. Since then, she has taught ballet, modern, jazz, lyrical, hip hop, and liturgical dance to dancers from 3-73 years old. She served as a dance technique instructor for The Eagles Network (TEN) in her home state for eight years and was able to choreograph the graduation dance selections for several of those years. She has been blessed to teach dance ministry workshops and minister in dance throughout Georgia, across the country, and in other nations, including Panama and The United Kingdom.

Mailia holds a degree in Industrial Engineering and spent several years as a career engineer. In 2018, she left her job to return to school and is currently in law school at Mercer University where she will graduate in 2021 with her Juris Doctor.

Mailia is a firm believer that excellence is the standard, not the goal in all things, and her life mission is to demonstrate and maintain excellence in her daily life while encouraging excellence in those around her.  This push to promote excellence led her to found Dancellence Training LLC, a mobile training center for dancers, especially dance ministers, to receive ongoing training and enrichment in technical skills while also growing spiritually. The vision of Dancellence is to promote Kingdom excellence in dance and dance ministry in such a way that dancers may enhance their abilities for the glory of God and the promotion of God’s Kingdom.

Mailia is a member of Embassy International Worship Center under the leading of Apostle Bryan Meadows and Pastor Patrice Meadows and is excited about growing and participating as a part of that church family. She takes to heart Psalm 92:12 and has made it her goal for every area of her life to flourish for God’s kingdom.

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