As someone who has been dancing my entire life, I’ve developed an attention to detail and a real appreciation for the artists who are shaping the dance world right now. Over the years, these dancers have appeared in my orbit, mostly through Instagram, and each one has caught my attention in a memorable way.
1. Kayla Mak
I first heard about Kayla Mak in high school, when a friend asked if I had seen “the ballet dancer on Season 3 of World of Dance.” I hadn’t, but after looking her up, I immediately loved her movement style. Her dancing has a fluid, tensile quality, as if her body moves with the ease and flexibility of a ribbon in motion. Learning that she was from Rye Brook, New York, just a few miles from my hometown of Rye, made her journey feel even more tangible. Seeing someone from so close to home dance with such maturity made her trajectory feel both inspiring and attainable.
Mak’s versatility is rooted in the way she shaped her early training, first at Westchester Dance Academy and then at Ballet Academy East, where she strengthened her classical foundation. She went on to earn her BFA in Dance from The Juilliard School, graduating in 2025, before joining the ABT Studio Company under Sascha Radetsky. There, she performed works by choreographers such as Justin Peck, Jamar Roberts, and Amy Hall Garner. She is now an apprentice with American Ballet Theatre.
2. Brady Farrar
I discovered Brady Farrar through Elisabeth Beyer, another incredible young ballet dancer, after seeing the two featured together in a photoshoot. Like Mak, Farrar possesses both strong classical technique and the dynamic athleticism that comes from competitive dance. A gold medalist at the 2016 Youth America Grand Prix, he has trained across an impressive range of styles: lyrical, tap, ballroom, contemporary, and competition work, alongside highly refined ballet training. He even appeared on Dance Moms!
That blend gives Farrar’s dancing an incredible versatile dancer with the precision, placement, and clean lines of a ballet dancer, but pairs them with the speed, elasticity, and emotional intensity of the competitive world. The result is an unusually adaptable mover, someone capable of shifting between genres without ever losing his individuality.
3. Maranda Dininno – Miami, FL
I first came across Maranda Dininno on Instagram, in a video posted by Broadway Dance Center jazz-funk instructor Miles Keeney. The clip, filmed during the panel auditions at Revel Dance Convention Nationals, showed her improvising explosive turns, jumps, and flips both before and after Keeney’s combination. The video amassed over 8 million views and nearly a million likes. Soon after, another viral clip appeared on my Instagram For You page and this time from Dexter Carr’s hip-hop class in Los Angeles where she executed two airborne turning jumps with striking height and control while the other dancers were just doing one jump up in the air without any turns.
Dininno has quickly become a force in the hip-hop and commercial dance world. Her competitive-dance background gives her the fearlessness and athletic intensity that define her style, while her improvisation skills reveal a natural performer with instinctive musicality. Already an assistant to renowned choreographer Blake McGrath, she has demonstrated technical and professionalism beyond her years. With her momentum, versatility, and undeniable stage presence, she will 100% go far in the dance world.
Together, dancers like Mak, Farrar, and Dininno represent the direction the next generation of dance is moving toward versatility, boundary-blurring training, and a willingness to move fluidly between styles. Watching them evolve, even from a distance, reminds me why the dance world feels so alive right now: it’s full of artists who are redefining what it means to be technically strong, expressive, and adaptable. These are the dancers shaping the future, and the ones I’ll continue to watch closely. As a dancer myself, with a deep passion for this art form, seeing these incredible artists thrive is so inspiring. It motivates me to keep pushing, learning, and discovering what else the dance world has to offer.