Get to know our dancers and special guests... ​

Around the World in 80 Days has managed to bring together a large and diverse group of dancers from all ages and abilities, where they will be faced with a challenge of tackling difference dance styles and tackling a little bit of acting as this time we are telling a story through dance. It's an amazing learning curve for all of us but specially for those who are embarking on this project for the first time. Below you can meet them and learn a little bit more about their experiences and  aspirations for this project.

​This is my first time dancing with a group out side of going out to a club with friends.

 

I normally am quite active. I like to run and do physical challenges like the Tough Guy challenge or run Marathons, but lately I have been looking for something else and when my friend, Lisa said about coming along as the group was after a male dancer, I thought, "What the Hey, why not!"

 

I had been looking for something else and as I enjoy bouncing around the dance floor in a club, skanking normally to Ska/Punk music, I thought I would give it a try. Other than that and the slow dance any guy gets taught for family official occasions like weddings, when your mum or gran wants a dance I do not have any experience but I am willing to try new things and see what happens.​

I feel this will be an amazing experience and have a lot to learn.​

​Lisa never planned to perform when she started bellydance around five or six years ago, trying it just for exercise and the community spirit. When she gave it a go though, she realised she learns better having a goal to aim for, and enjoys the reward of turning practise into entertainment. Taking part in Oba Oba! Yalla! in 2011 was a large step from her comfort zone.

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Confident at acting on stage or talking publicly, Lisa feels that dance is a lot more intimate to express and share, and there's much more pressure to be in tune and precise with the other performers. She occasionally draws cartoons, to try explain to others what bellydance can be like 'behind the scenes', as it's often not what you'd think!

​My belly dance journey has already taken me around the world. I travelled to Egypt with Tatiana, Tracey and another dancer to take lessons from several Egyptian teachers, including the famous Yasmina. There’s no substitute for going right back to the dance’s land of origin to learn its roots and what it’s really all about. And of course, Egypt has so many world class souks where I could feed my addiction for costumes, hip belts, jewellery – all things bling and belly dance!

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I have been belly dancing on and off for nearly ten years, and Tatiana and Janet have both been teachers of mine. As well as Egyptian dance, I spent two years studying American Tribal Style and I’ve been to a number of belly dance festivals; Gothla, Joy and Raqs Britannia, to name but a few.  I’m not restricted to the Middle East or any particular time period, though – right now I’m feeding my passion for vintage style and art by learning to lindy hop.

At the age of 7 I was part of a theatre company and I have enjoyed performing ever since. I have been bellydancing for about 7 years and I'm a member of the Daughters of Farah, a professional troupe led by Tati Woolley. We have performed at a number of events internationally. I am also passionate about all forms of street dance and has recently taken up salsa!

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I have a PhD in law and is a senior lecturer in law at Nottingham Trent University.

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My project for this show is to devise an old school hip-hop set for when we journey through the US. Hold your breath and she is gooood at this!

 

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​Tracy studied Ballet and Tap dance for a number of years as a child, and then as an adult, rediscovered her love of dance through Bellydance, after seeing the Bellydance Superstars perform at Glastonbury Festival in 2005.

She started her Bellydance journey with well respected Nottingham teacher Gabriella Middleton, before meeting her current teacher, Tati Woolley.
She saw Tati perform at one of Gabriella hafla’s and knew this was the direction she wanted to go in. She approached Tati there and then, and has been a devoted student and great friend since then.
In recent years Tracy has also taken up Rock ‘n’ Roll dancing with her husband.

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Her project for the show is to lead on a fabulous Carmem Miranda set and help the daughters of Farah devise an exciting cancan number for the show.

​I have been bellydancing with Tati at ABC Dance School for about 4 years now. With a background in Martial Arts, bellydancing was refreshingly new for me and I love everything about it from the beautiful costumes to the fact that the shimmy is an actual move and we can drench ourselves in glitter spray before every show!

​I have been dancing all my life; my roots were in soul, Tamala Motown and Reggae which were the true expression of soul. I have always loved dancing as a hobby and for fun.

I became interested in Egyptian dance when I was asked to find a tutor and provide a belly dance class, for FE College. The aim was to provide a fun, first steps learning class, which helped students to enter into main stream college, also to improved self confidence and self esteem.

I joined the class and never looked back, it does improve confidence and self esteem but much more. I have enjoyed a fun social net work and found a wonderful hobby, dancing has certainly kept me healthy and fit. Why do I still dance at 61? Because I want to live my life to the full, size, shape, age, is not a barrier, belly dance welcomes all.

​Coming soon

​Who is Janet Rose?

“Passepartout hurried out on his errand, delighted that he was not to lose the company of the woman who always treated him with great kindness.”

– Around the World in 80 Days

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I know Janet Rose is in the room even before I’ve turned around to see her. Whatever she said to her students just as she left them for a few minutes to practise their Nubian dance, it sparked a bubble of delighted laughter that echoes around her all the way down the corridor. She has true stage presence all the time, wherever she is. I sense her aura.

 

“I remember I’d been doing belly dance as a hobby when I was working at a women’s training scheme,” she recalls. “The staff asked me to show them; it was a good way to de-stress. Then I met Tatiana Woolley when we were both students of the same teacher.” The relationship they struck up was both personal and professional; they joined together to form the Nottingham Dance Collective, combining Janet’s business, Belly Dance World, with Tatiana’s (ABC Dance School). Their first theatre project was the dance show Oba Oba Yalla in 2011; the second one, of course, is Around the World in 80 Days.

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“Oba Oba Yalla was a very steep learning curve,” Janet muses. “It was a lot of hard work and such a challenge in so many ways. But it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I actually sprained my knee two weeks before, but nothing was going to stop me performing in that show after all the work I’d done. My physiotherapist said she’d get me through the show but after that I had to have a break. I would have crawled to make it through! And I did it, and it was magical.

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“You know, so many women ask me if they have to be slim to belly dance. They think you have to be a size 6. And I say, look at me!”

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Looking at Janet is a pleasure. Not just because she’s beautiful (though she is), but also because she dances with a perfect fluid grace as if she were underwater, a mermaid of the air. Her group choreographies are distinctive for the patterns she likes to create with her dancers on the floor; as one of her Moroccan shikaat students, I can attest to this.

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“I do workshops in body confidence and managing stress, anxiety and depression,” Janet adds. She has worked in welfare rights, probation and schools, so she has experience with vulnerable people, and transferring new skills. Talking of which, what do you enjoy about teaching?

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“Beating my students, of course. Joke!” she adds hastily as I quickly try to kick the saidi sticks out of reach. She laughs, yet again. “I love bringing women together, helping them develop and doing things they never thought they’d be able to do, meeting their individual challenges. It’s like flowers growing. I get so proud of my students.” And now she actually looks a little bit teary. Speaking of students, she has to get back to the Nubian dancers. “Never know what they might get up to otherwise!” she grins as she rises to return to her class. Another bubble of laughter greets her as she enters the corridor and I can hear the music start up again as she approaches. Laughter, music and dancing…these seem to follow Janet everywhere she goes. Maybe that’s how she gets her aura.

To find out more about Belly Dance World, visit www.bellydanceworld.co.uk

I'm Brazilian born and I have been dancing my whole life. I have been teaching and studying middle eastern dances for over 13 years. I have studied with some of the most reputable teachers in Egypt, and have co-directed NDC's first theatre show Oba Oba! Yalla! which was subsequently chosen to be support act for the Bellydance Superstars when they came to Nottingham in 2012. I have also been performing and teaching in high profile events throughout the UK. Being from North East of Brazil I have a solid background in Afro-Brazilian dances and I have a secret passion for Contemporary dance. I run my own Brazilian/Arabic dance school in Nottingham, ABC Dance School and I design and make Bellydance costumes and practicewear under the design label Practice in Style.

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My role in this project is to coach, teach, and devise choreographies, work out the technical side of a theatre production and obviously adapt the story to a dance theatre show. I am also training the main characters for the show which is very exciting for me! I'm really looking forward to this show!

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Tatiana’s Story

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“Who was this woman? By what occurrence of circumstances had she become Fogg’s companion?”

- Around the World in 80 Days

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Traveling the world? Falling in love across cultures? Making personal journeys while passing through continents? That wasn’t just Phileas Fogg.

When Tatiana Woolley came to Britain ten years ago, it was the end of one journey – from her homeland, Brazil, to the UK – and the start of another. She now runs several businesses, performs solo and with her student and professional troupes in countless private and public events and is preparing for her second theatre show in the city. She is the founder and owner of Practice in Style, an exclusive line of costumes and practice wear, both off the rack and made to measure. Her other business, the ABC Dance School, is the only institution in Nottingham to teach both Brazilian and belly dance. But then, Tatiana is eclecticism personified.

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“We thought that with Around the World in 80 Days for this show, we could have a story with lots of diversity,” she notes. “We could incorporate all sorts of different styles and expressions. It was a good way to build on what we learned from our first theatre show in 2011, Oba Oba Yalla, which was a straightforward dance show.”

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Tatiana has a history of trying new things. Born in Recife in Brazil, she began learning both dance and seamstress skills as a teenager (she started by sneaking onto her mother’s sewing machine to make her trousers shorter). While teaching English as a second language, she met David Woolley from Nottingham. “He was my mentor,” she admits, giggling. How very unprofessional. “Yep!” Was this a case of an exotic woman unlocking a reserved British gentleman’s latent passion? Like another familiar story? “Yep!”

They married (of course) and Tatiana moved to Nottingham with David in 2002. She volunteered for the British Heart Foundation, then joined Trent University’s language department, but continued to dance at all times. “I took workshops, I developed my technique.” Like everything else about her, Tatiana’s dance is a joyful blend of inspiration. From passionate Brazilian samba to dreamy Middle Eastern baladi, Tatiana’s dancing is itself a journey around the world and even through time. Audiences never know what to expect.

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So now here she is in Nottingham, successful, surrounded by friends, working harder than ever to choreograph and teach the dances for the next theatre show and create all the costumes for it (yes, really). What was it like putting in so much work to build a whole new life in another continent?

“You know, there was one day some time ago when I was so stressed,” Tatiana muses. “I really thought that might be the end. And then Jane Carlyon*, one of my students, came to me and said, ‘You’re not quitting, are you?’ I thought she was going to cry. So I thought, no. I’m not quitting. Not if I’m that precious to people. It made me really appreciate my students and how much I love being with them.”

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Kind words, but misplaced. It’s the students who should be grateful to the ABC Dance School, and the Nottingham Dance Collective. Tatiana’s personal journeys have taken her far; we look forward to seeing all the places she takes us too.