Ava Wagner and her sister Ellie are competitive dancers in college. Their dance career started very early in life. Dance has been in their family forever. Their great-grandmother, Shirley Larkin, founded a dance studio in Maplewood, Minnesota. The Larkin Dance Studio is a family-owned studio founded in 1950. They operate a full-service dance studio specializing in tap, ballet, jazz, lyrical, contemporary, hip-hop, acro, and pointe instruction.
Ellie is twenty-one years old and has performed in a variety of stage productions and has also competed in a variety of competitions, including NBC’s World of Dance season three. She has won several awards for her dancing including the Top 10 Teen Best Dancers at The Dance Academy consecutively in both 2016 and 2017. She is currently a junior at Ohio State University and is a part of their dance team. Ohio State was one of the many dance teams that competed in the UDA National Competition at Disney World. They placed first in jazz with a very passionate routine and placed second in pom. Ellie has been a part of their dance team her whole college career.
Ava is eighteen years old and her time to shine came when she began competing with her sister Ellie on the third season of World of Dance as part of the duo Ellie & Ava. She was named Junior Female Best Dancer at The Dance Awards in 2018. Ava is currently a freshman at The University of Minnesota and is on their dance team. Minnesota dance team recently competed at the same competition as Ohio State. They performed a beautiful jazz routine with lots of complicated skills and a very astonishing pom routine.
At the UDA dance competition, Ohio State and Minnesota went head to head in the jazz and pom divisions. Both of their routines were amazing and worthy of first place. The judges made a hard decision and gave Ohio State first in jazz and second in pom, which leaves second place in jazz and first in pom for Minnesota. The Wagner sisters had to compete against each other over three days. Both teams have worked countless hours on their routines and the hard work has paid off.
Ava and Ellie are the daughters of Susan and Cory Wagner. Their parents are always very supportive of their goals and strive for perfection. Susan and Cory went to the competition with t-shirts that had both teams on them and pins that clipped onto their shirts with Ava and Ellie’s pictures on them. These girls have managed to go viral on all social media platforms. They made a TikTok with their parents and compared themselves to the Kelce brothers. They captioned it ” The Kelce family got nothin on us!” These girls have definitely made a mark in the dance community. Maybe competing against your sister isn’t so bad after all.
