ALEENA PALUMBO

Born and raised in Folsom, California, Aleena Palumbo started attending Hawkins School of Performing Arts at the age of two. She began with tap and ballet, and as the years passed, she joined a hip-hop troupe. Ballet has always been her favorite style and the strength of her dance career. She danced with Ballet Folsom for 4 years and started pointe at the age of 12. At this time, she also danced with Sweet Feet, adding onto her jazz and contemporary experiences. Dance became a lot more serious for her when Jacob Gutiérrez-Montoya expanded his troupes into companies. Through the years of being on Hawkins Contemporary Jazz Company (HCJC), Aleena has performed in two national award winning dances, “Juliet” (2015) and “Glory” (2017), at the prestigious McCallum Theatre Choreography Festival in Palm Desert, California. One of Aleena’s favorite shows, "Sign of Life,” combined dancing with Sign Language and raised money for Camp Grizzly. During this show, she was inspired and fell in love with American Sign Language. She thought, “I am in love with Sign Language and I am in love with dance… why not combine them?” Aleena graduated from Folsom High School in 2019 and is starting the process of getting her masters in American Sign Language and a degree in dance in hopes of teaching deaf children how to dance.