MEET THE TEAM
PRINCIPAL
EMMA BROOKES A.I.S.T.D. DBC Dip
The principal of the school, Emma Brookes trained at The Royal Ballet School and Bird College of Performing Arts. She had a 10 year professional dance career encompassing Classical Ballet, Tap, Contemporary, Modern, Jazz and Street genres.
Work in the dance world of theatre, variety shows, pantomime, film and television has given her a wealth of experience in England and across the world.
She is a fully qualified ISTD teacher and has taught Ballet, Modern and Tap as well as Street and GCSE dance for many years. Her pupils have consistently had excellent exam results.
Emma’s teaching expertise covers very young children through to adults with many of her students going into the dance profession.
MUSICAL THEATRE TEACHER
LOU EMMOTT-BURKE
Meet Lou, our new musical theatre teacher!
Introducing Lou Emmott-Burke, who lives right here in Tenterden, has a little girl who attends BDA and will be heading up our new Musical Theatre Classes.
Lou started dancing at the age of 2, encouraged by her late godmother, who was looking after her at the time and needed a break from Lou's relentless energy! Which we're pleased to announce, she still has!
Lou performed with the National Youth Ballet for several seasons, as a young teen. Working directly with choreographers including Peter Curtis and Wayne Sleep, who were creating original commissions for the company. Shows included a Gala at the Royal Opera House. Lou featured as the Cheshire Cat in "Alice in Wonderland" at London's Guildhall for Princess Anne, (who she got to meet!). Credits with NYB also included a BBC televised Christmas Concert from The Royal Albert Hall where she was inspired by watching stars perform Poetry and Songs, such as Michael Ball and Ben Kingsley.
Enough of all the high-brow now! She loves a cheesy Pantomime too and performed for years across Sussex and Kent both as a "babe" and then again professionally as an adult - Oh no she didn't - Oh yes she did!
It served as a great education in stagecraft, theatre etiquette, learning how professional rehearsals work and how hard it is to maintain performance levels day after day for each paying audience - as well as having loads of fun on stage throughout the run!
She completed all of her Modern, Tap and Ballet Syllabus exams with Honours and had qualified as an ISTD Ballet Teacher at age 17, before heading to Italia Conti Academy of Performing Arts to broaden her experiences into Acting, Singing and Musical Theatre. Three years later, she graduated with Honours as Head Girl.
Rachael
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