Aquinas Saints Dance Camps

Head Coach

Ashley Kaman

Ashley Kaman joined the Aquinas Athletic Department in the summer of 2019 and serves as both the head coach of the AQ dance program and the Manager of Marketing for the administrative team. She is the third head coach in the history of the AQ dance program.

Over the last five seasons, the Aquinas Dance Team (AQDT) has been extraordinarily successful. Kaman has never seen the team not win the WHAC Championship as the Saints have taken home the title in each of the last five seasons. The AQDT has competed at nationals in each of the last five years, with their best result being fifth place in 2022. The Saints continued to add to their hardware with two runner-up finishes at the National Dance Alliance (NDA) Nationals in both 2023 and 2024.

Kaman is a four-time WHAC Coach of the Year that has led the Saints dance squad to a tremendous amount of individual success. The Saints have had three WHAC Dancers of the Year, three WHAC Newcomers of the Year, 19 First Team All-WHAC athletes, and 11 All-WHAC Second Team athletes.

At the national-level, Aquinas has boasted nine NAIA All-Americans and three NAIA All-American Honorable Mentions.

Over the past five seasons, the dance team has also experienced a tremendous amount of academic success as well. The AQ dance team had the highest team GPA of any sport at Aquinas for four straight season from 2021-24. This is a result of 18 athletes being selected to the WHAC All-Academic team over the past four seasons.

Before coming to Aquinas, Kaman has extensive dance and coaching experience in West Michigan. Coach Kaman attended and graduated from Grand Valley State University, where she was a member of the Laker dance team from 2001-2005. She served as captain of the team from 2003-2005. Ashley then went on and obtained her graduate degree in Sports Administration from Central Michigan University.

Professionally, Kaman has served as Co-Artistic Director at the Rapid City Dance Factory since 1998, instructing children and adults in tap, jazz, ballet and hip hop dance.

In 2010, she became the varsity dance team coach at Kenowa Hills High School, where she coached until the spring of 2019, building the team to a successful program competing on a national level. In 2017, Kaman became the head Dance Team Coach for the NBA G League's Grand Rapids Gold. Kaman held auditions and selected the team annually, while choreographing and instructing game routines and game day performances.

Kaman has also been involved with athletics programs in an administrative capacity, serving as Gameday Operations Manager for Grand Rapids FC and Director of Marketing for Midwest United FC.

Ashley lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband Ed and their dog Hattie