As a child I attended regular classes in ballet, modern/jazz and tap from 'too young to remember' up to age 15. I loved dance, but found the exam oriented dance school rat race hard going as I was never going to make it as a ballerina and 'doing it for fun' did not seem to be an option. I gave up dance at 15 - officially due to exam pressures - and then did not dance for many years. I had always had a wide musical taste, from folk to medieval to electronic to world particularly for Spanish/Flamenco music. This latter interest eventually prompted me to go looking for Flamenco dance lessons.
In 1994, in search of Flamenco, I attended a local charity dance workshop event and met Margaret Reddyhoff, a teacher of Arabic Dance in Leeds. I joined Margaret's class at the Yorkshire Dance Centre and have never looked back (Flamenco was just too hard on the feet so I never made it beyond the taster workshop although it is still something I really love to watch). I attended classes with Margaret for 5 years or so and remained in touch up to her death in 2009. After a few years I began to act as her Iocal teacher and regularly danced with her group in public performances. In 1998 I began taking a second class with another, younger, teacher Candi Bell, to help expand my experience. I attended workshop events with a range of teachers - including Armel Tatouff, Wendy Bounaventurea, Jo Wise, Sara Farouk and many others.
In 1999 I took over teaching Candi's classes in Halifax with her support when she had to quit it due to ill health. This was a local education authority class so I was required to take a qualification in teaching adults which was helpful in understanding the general teaching/learning process. I have been teaching classes of various styles ever since, privately, for dance schools and IocaI authority education programmes.
After seeing my first Tribal belly dance in 2000 I was hooked. I managed to do some workshops and get some videos and gather a group of my existing students to experiment with the style. These sessions developed into a regular weekly class - and the concept of North Wind. Since 2001 I have been teaching and learning about tribal style, alongside the Egyptian/North African dance style. I was the only local teacher who was promoting tribal style in the North of England and as such found myself called on to deliver taster workshops all over the North. As my own experience was limited, this was a little like 'in the land of the blind the one eyed man (or woman) is king', but I don't seem to have done much harm and have managed to inspire others who have gone on to develop the style for themselves which is always very gratifying. In 2004 I worked with Mandy Teasdale of ShimmyShop to create the first Jewel of Yorkshire festival which goes from strength to strength and covers the whole range of belly dance styles form modern Cairo to traditional folk - with a good bit of tribal in the mix. I also run the Yorkshire Bedazzle charity I performance shows (from 2005) with much support from friends and family. These are a great I opportunity for local groups to show off their best work and get together for a good cause (raising £1000s over the years).
One of the things that interested me about tribal is the way in which, as a deliberate fusion of dance styles, it can be coaxed into new directions. By chance, early on in my tribal career, I was asked to dance for a group of musicians who were experimenting with a fusion of Arabic/Eastern European rhythms and UK folk music. This was a heady mix, all the excitement of the exotic with a firmly familiar folk base. Although it took a while to get there - this eventually pushed me to form the Four Hundred Roses dance troupe - a group of experienced dancers who are having a great deal of fun and success creating their own tribal fusion style incorporating elements of UK folk and Morris dance.
As my interest in tribal style has grown and matured my personal interest in cabaret-style dance has waned. In early 2009 I decided that I wanted to devote most of my energy to tribal style and so have more-or-less given up teaching/performing other styles. In October 2009 I took the Gypsy Caravan Collective Soul 1 course with Paulette Rees-Denise and hope to do the second level shortly. While North Wind style is different from Gypsy Caravan style in many ways, it is absolutely at the roots of what I do. I found the time spent refining my own dance skills and refreshing what I know of Gypsy Caravan style to be very beneficial. Paulette has the grace to accept that different groups will develop their own ways of working and, while she will rightly dictate what is done under the name of Gypsy Caravan, she is comfortable with the many different ways the dance is developing. In part this experience has settled my view of what North Wind has achieved. I love PauIette's style and take my inspiration from it, but I am not part of Gypsy Caravan and of necessity I have created my own I approach within my own tribe. We are all, each in our own way, unique artists - and there is plenty to celebrate in that.