I think I have always had dancing feet, one of my earliest memories was dancing for the cows in the field behind where I lived as a child.

I was brought up in an isolated rural area so a respect and connection with nature has always been at the heart of what I offer.

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When I left home at 18 I sought out every dance opportunity I could find, when I chanced upon a weekend circle dance workshop in around 1983, I knew instantly that I had found my path. As there were no circle dance groups where I lived I initially started sharing the dances from Tape 1 with my friends at every opportunity. This led gently in 1989 to organising my first public event, a day of dance. The day event grew into a regular group and here I am still teaching and still learning. I weave together traditional and more modern dances and I am a qualified and registered teacher with the International Society of Folk Dancing.

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I have a huge love and dedication for Armenian dance and have organised a number of dance tours to Armenia. For many years I was the director of Nottingham based Kilikia Dances for Armenia group.

My background in Greek dance also goes back many years. I danced with the Nottingham Greek community dance groups for 20 years, and still annually I visit Greece to study traditional dance.

For the past decade I have been studying Anatolian dance and have taken 5 dance and cultural tours to Turkey. These unforgettable holidays were organised with my great friends Ahmet Turan Demirbag who is Professor of traditional dance and music at Istanbul University and Turgay Onatli dance teacher extraordinary.

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Parallel to my dancing life I have loved yoga and began a regular practice in 1995. This grew to my taking training to become a yoga teacher and I began to teach yoga groups from 2014. The yoga I share is holistic yoga, drawn from different yoga traditions, and concerned with an inner as much as a physical practice. My current main teachers are Swami Nishchalananda Saraswati and the other teachers at Mandala Yoga Ashram (originally linked to Satyananda school). My other major teachers have been Judith Lasater (originally Iyengar school) , AG Mohan and Indra Mohan (Svastha school from Krishnamacharya), Uma Dinsmore Tuli and Conrad Paul. I am also currently studying verdic chanting with different teachers in the UK and Shelia Shanker in India (Desikacar school).

There are many links between yoga and circle dance and the two when practiced together can be very complimentary and inspiring.

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Both yoga and dancing have led me to many wonderful places where I would never have been otherwise, particularly to exploring the countries along the Old Silk Road. Learning about the cultures, stories and histories of the people who live here as well as their dance and music, has led me to develop my project of Dances and Stories of the Silk Road.

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In 2015 I began to train as a sound therapist and completed my studies in 2022, when I received a Diploma with Distinction in Sound Therapy and registered as a sound therapist with the International Therapeutic Sound Association. I offer individual and group sound experiences using mostly gongs and crystal and Himalayan singing bowls. Again I find this work complimentary to my yoga and dance offerings helping to heal, nourish and inspire my students and myself.

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