Thursday 2nd April 2020

We thought that it would be nice to hear from our BE.Dancers at this time and ask what it is that they love about dance?

We hope you join in and send us your thoughts and so that we can share them on this blog. Before we do that, we are going to tell you all a little bit more about where our passion for dance came from. I am going to start….

I have danced ever since I was a tiny tot and have always loved it. My parents were quite strict about school and the rule was always that if you don’t feel well enough to go to school then you are not well enough to go to dancing. Needless to say I always went to school as I never wanted to miss a dance class and I am certain that this has given me the work ethic I have today.

I was a painfully shy child and bullied at secondary school, so dance class was my outlet and my dancing friends were my best friends. I would never ever put my hand up to answer a question at school but I had no problem getting up on stage and dancing to a big audience, much to other people’s amazement. 

I went to a very academic senior school and when it came to the time of thinking about my future I remember the careers teacher asking what I wanted to do. I answered that I wanted to be a dancer and go to theatre school and the response was something along the lines of ‘now lets think about a serious option’. I didn’t let it deter me and despite being told to stop dance classes and focus on my A Levels I continued to go to my classes after school and assist my teacher with the younger groups which I absolutely loved. I auditioned for dance colleges and was offered a place at Italia Conti Academy Of Theatre Arts. 

I moved up to London from Bournemouth when I was 18 years old to attend ‘Contis’ and lived in the YMCA in Barbican, which was across the road form the college. My first ever class was Improvisation which is my worse nightmare (I still hate the game Charades for this reason), but I got through it and those three years of training were the best ever. 

We had classes in all subjects and my confidence grew. I still hated having to get up for acting class and would have to hold my friends hand if I had to sing a solo, but the dancing was brilliant. Alongside commercial, contemporary, ballet, modern, tap and pas de deux, I also took my LAMDA exams and qualified as an AISTD Ballet teacher. Now ballet is not necessarily my strongest subject, but I always knew how important it would be to get some qualifications in this industry and I continued to teach at the Italia Conti Associate Schools on the weekends.

When I graduated, the safety net of college disappeared and you had to go out and audition. And I hated every minute of it. You need to have a really thick skin to survive in this industry and I learnt very quickly that it wasn’t for me. I didn’t have the confidence to push myself forward in auditions and always came away feeling really deflated. Having said that, I had some lovely jobs such as panto’s,  adverts, some choreo for television programmes and a stint at Disneyland Paris wearing some very well known dresses!

I found it hard getting the balance right- you needed to go to classes in order to get better or go to auditions, but I also had rent to pay. I did so many promo jobs, handing out food samples, leaflets, newspapers etc that meant I had no time to get to class or auditions. Gradually I started to get more and more teaching work and realised that this is what I wanted to do. It made me far happier than performing.

I have been lucky enough to work for the Royal Academy of Dance teaching 'Song & Dance' and ‘West End Jazz’. In turn, this led to teaching Jazz and Musical Theatre for the RAD’s workshops and Summer schools across the UK, Italy, Jakarta, Luxembourg and Singapore. I also worked closely with RAD on their ‘Step into Dance’ programme, which takes dance into schools in London and have seen my choreography showcased in ‘Step Live’ at Sadler's Wells Theatre and Southbank Centre as well as for the Jack Petchey Foundation in The Lord Mayor's Show. 

I taught for Stagecoach for ten years and helped to run a dance school in Hertfordshire. After a few years I decided to set up BE.Dance and the rest is history!

Running BE.Dance means that I still get to dance and be creative. It is probably very apparent that I am a bit of a control freak but I have worked so hard to get BE.Dance where it is today and feel very proud of the dance school that it has become. Surprisingly my day is predominantly made up of doing the admin which is necessary to run the school rather than teaching itself, so the highlight of my week are those classes that I do get to teach. Our annual shows are such hard work, but I like organising events and love putting together costumes. I will elaborate on what it takes to put on a show another time!

So there it is. Being a teacher can sometimes be seen as second best, that old saying “Those who can’t, teach”. I wholeheartedly disagree. Teaching is my passion and it gives me such joy watching our dancers grow in confidence. For me that is what it is all about. You don’t need to be the most talented dancer in the room- I am more impressed if you give it your absolute all and never give up. That is how we grow!

Becca x

Major throwback!