Hi and thanks for dropping into my little nook; if you like what you see, add my as your ‘friend’ and drop me a line. I’d love to hear from you!
I grew up, (Now that’s an oxymoron, for I’ve not really ‘grown up’ and certainly don’t intent to now!) in the Rhondda Valleys, south Wales and spent most of my childhood playing quite freely on the Welsh mountains and hillsides. Friends cock an eyebrow and laugh when I tell them that my playground was a disused colliery, but it’s true; and my siblings (two brothers and four sisters) and I loved every minute of it.
Music and dance was a huge thing at home, dad played clarinet, piano accordion, drums, guitar, and saxophone; and when available, any old rickety, out of tune piano. He and mum would stage impromptu ‘singalongs’ and encourage my sister Sharon and I to dance whilst they played and sang. Dad taught me to play the guitar and accordion and we actually played briefly with a Skiffle group when I was just ten years old.
From the age of eight, a much-loved schoolteacher, Mrs Rees, expanded my love of dance. She was tall and curvy with a red beehive hairstyle and drove a red mini; and she was just the most perfect person (outside of my immediate family) I had known to date. Mrs Rees introduced me to ballet and many of the classics; I studied books on the subject endlessly and spent my first true savings on a set of LP’s (Long playing vinyl records) of Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Prokofiev and Stravinsky and raided the local library for any ballet instruction manual I could find.
I joined a Ballroom and Latin dance class when I was eleven and met the woman who was to inspire me for the next six years, the incomparable Dina Thomas. This tiny women (4’ 10”) ruled her classes without compromise and despite her diminutive stature, could make the hairs on the back of my neck stand erect with just a glance over her shoulder. But oh, how she could dance! I gradually made my way through all of my formal dance grades and eventually went on to enter several ‘Disco’ competitions, winning the District Championship.
A chance meeting with a new neighbour, Gaynor Barclay a former principal ballet dancer, reunited me with my first love of dance. Gaynor taught me privately for several years until ill health prevented her. As I had not had any formal ballet training to that point, and as Ballroom used quite different techniques and posture, this was quite a challenge, but one I absolutely adored rising to. I was up on full pointe within the year!
This coincided with me joining the Keep Fit Association of Wales and with the guidance of my instructor and mentor Meryl Meredith, I trained as a fitness and dance instructor and eventually gained my qualification. As part of my training, I was invited to choreograph and stage a themed piece for 30 dancers for a gala performance at the St David’s Hall in Cardiff as part of it’s grand opening.
I’ve since taught dance and movement, encompassing a wide variety of styles, but my passion really is focussed now on teaching bellydance. The thrill I get when students take what I teach them and make it their own is unsurpassable. Bellydance has opened a new vista on life for me, as it has become not simply another dance form to tuck under my belt, but a whole way of life. It seems the more people I meet in the world of bellydance, whether they are students, teachers, dancers, musicians or technicians, they are people who have ‘soul’. They are people who love other people and I am so grateful to be part of that.
gyr8bellydance@hotmail.com
