First Name: Lauren  

Surname: Willis

Age: 21

Birthday: 28th April 1994

Gender: Female

Height: 5"6

Interests: Dance Theatre

Inspiration: Frantic Assembly

 

Lauren Willis is 21 years of age and is in her final year at the University of Bedfordshire. The course Lauren is studying, is 'Dance and Professional Practice'. She started dancing at 3 years old.She started herpractice at 'STAG' (Stevenage Theatre Arts Group) dance school. Whilst at this dance school, Lauren, studied ISTD Ballet, ISTD Modern, ISTD Tap,  ISTD Jazz and Hip hop. Her passion, growing up was Tap. Lauren enjoyed learning various rhythms and phrases.

 

"The ISTD's chief objective is: "to educate the public in the art of dancing in all its forms". (ISTD. (-). Mission. Available: http://www.istd.org/about-us/mission/. Last accessed 28th April 2015). Being part of a dance school involved with ISTD practice, was like being part of a community.

 

At 15 years old,Lauren, chose GCSE Dance. This was the first time she experienced the contemporary genre and studied various practioners. Her interest in dance began to develop into future career prospects. Alongside GCSE Dance, Lauren also took GCSE Drama. This allowed Lauren to work on her performance skills. Through this time, Lauren became inspired by movement theatre, which then lead her to dance theatre.

In BTEC Dance and Alevel Theatre Studies Lauren was able to experiment using gestural movement in choreography.

 

Alongside her studies, Lauren began to volunteer assistance in her dance school. This gave her teaching experience. Then she began to assist choreography for her secondary schools.Through this time Lauren realised teaching is where she wanted to pursue her career. She is interested in both community dance and further education.

 

Taking part of voulteering for choreography and teaching, has allowed Lauren to develop a passion for creating movement and using this movement on other bodies. Helping other upcoming dancers develop their own practice, allows Lauren to develop her own practice.  Lauren believes that dance is a release of a person's emotions.

 

In Lauren's choreographic work, she uses gestural movement to represent her message. Lauren also believes that the audience is always a part of the performance, physically involved or not. Therefore, Lauren is interested in using the 4th wall through performance. She believes that the audience feel more involved, and can understand a choreography, throughout a performance when they become a physical part of the choreography. 

 

Lauren has taught various ages from 3 years old to 17 years. At her dance school Lauren volunteered to help teach young children Ballet, Tap and Modern. She enjoyed teaching early years in dance, because it allowed Lauren to explore the child-like development of practice, through games and tasks for the child.

For older ages Lauren had the opportunity to beome an assistant choreographer at her old secondary school. This gave Lauren musical theatre experience. The annal school musicals attracted various students from dancers to non-dancers. This gave Lauren experience to teach choreography to various skills. Lauren learnt that students who have never danced before had to learn in a slower pace to those who have danced for a longer period of time. Therefore, this gave Lauren skills to teach these stages at the same time.

 

 

ETHOS

 

 

Lauren's aspirations for the future is to create her own dance school or company and create professional work to be toured at theatres and schools across the United Kingdom.

Eventually, Lauren would like to open studios for dancers to rehearse her choreographic work. The studio will allow early years and above to attend for dance training also, this is so potential dancers can also develop their own practice by partaking in classes and workshops of their choice. Classes available will be; Ballet, Tap, Modern, Hip Hop, Contemporary and Contact Improvisation classes. Lauren believes dancers should have a broad training from a young age to help develop their strengths in every dancer's practice.

The classes would include Dance theatre training to develop gestural and performance skills for the students that would attend the workshops. Lauren would include this as her choreographic work includes a lot of Dance and Physical theatre, using gestural movements as well as rerpetory work.

 

Contact Lauren if you would like her to hold any workshops:

 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lauren-Willis-Dance-Teacher-Choreographer/1579905665596915