Staff

DANCE TEACHER - Principal

Cheryl Heuston

Cheryl trained at London Studio Centre, graduating in 2004 after touring with the Jazz Company.

After leaving dance school, Cheryl performed on ‘Top of the Pops’ and MTV’s ‘The Fridge’ as well as dancing in several Pantomimes and Corporate Events for Dance reality and Manic Productions.

Cheryl then went on to dance in production shows on cruise ships for HireNotes Productions and Vegas based, company CBG.

As a choreographer Cheryl has choreographed production shows for HireNotes and Manic Productions and worked as an assistant to Gail Davies of CBG, assisting and performing in ‘100 years of Magic’ at the London Palladium.

Cheryl has taught in schools around the Swindon area and taught Musical Theatre for the Ceccetti Summer School at Arts Educational.

Cheryl has been running MAD since it began in September 2013.

DRAMA TEACHER

Jackie Lawrence

Jackie Lawrence has a degree in Drama from Goldsmiths College, University of London and teaches children across Wiltshire in groups and one to one. She is passionate about helping children grow confidence through drama and to have fun learning new skills. 

Jackie’s groups and individual students have recently won accolades for their work in devised theatre, monologues and duologues. 

Jackie Lawrence is also an experienced broadcaster, presenter and writer.

SINGING TEACHER

Laura Coates

Laura will be teaching at our MAD classes on saturday mornings and private singing classes for students that wish to enter singing festivals.

Laura has taught private and group singing lessons over the past 2 years.

She has worked as Musical Director for the Chocolate Theatre junior Company on productions such as High School Muiscal Jr and Beauty and and the Beast Jr.

She has also directed productions for Cirencester College.

Boys Street Dance Teacher

Banxy

Banxy is a veteran in UK hip hop dance. Having trained at Swindon Dance, the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and the London Studio Centre, he has spent the last sixteen years teaching and performing across the UK and abroad. 

High-profile projects Banxy has been involved with include dancing and choreographing Jonzi Ds Me Vs the City and Aeroplane Man tours, choreographing breakdance sequences for the BBC TV series Travels with my Tutu with Deborah Bull, Principle Dancer at the Royal Ballet; and teaching and rehearsing  the ground performance dancers at the Millennium Dome celebrations.
He has appeared as a dancer in many TV shows, live events and music videos, including George Michaels Spinning the Wheel.

Banxy has been heavily involved with Swindon Dance throughout his professional career and was commissioned to perform at their 25th Anniversary Gala. Most recently he appeared in the BBC Blast programme as part of the Big Dance event in Trafalgar Square, and gained second place in the Battle of the Desert competition in Almeria, Spain.
 
Banxy toured his first full length production Busk: Kings of the Sidewalk extensively to packed houses throughout the UK in the Autumn of 2007 and 2009, and when not touring delivers extensive education and outreach to a wide variety of ages and abilities throughout the UK.

Contemporary Teacher

Gemma Bush

Gemma trained at London Studio Centre, majoring in Contemporary dance, she graduated in 2006 after touring with their third year company, Intoto.

Gemma’s dance career has been long and varied. Upon graduating Gemma worked as a freelance contemporary artist for Future Cinema and then for Channel 4.  Gemma went on to perform as a dancer and singer/dancer on cruise ships including Costa, Pacific Venus and Saga Cruises, travelling worldwide.

Gemma has a wealth of teaching experience, which includes; teaching Contemporary at Stonar School and Liberatus. Commercial classes for K4Kim Dance in Bath and Modern, Tap, Ballet and Jazz at various schools in Wiltshire.

As well as having a Foundation Degree in Dance, Gemma is a qualified Personal Trainer with qualifications, including:

Level 4 Specialist Qualification in Cardiac Rehabilitation.

Level 3 certificate in Exercise Referral

Level 3 Personal Training

Level 2 Studio Cycling qualification

Level 2 Gym instructor

ETM

Gemma teaches Circuits, Body Conditioning, HIIT, Group Cycling, Functional Fitness, Core Stability, and stretch classes.

We are very excited and lucky to have Gemma as part of the MAD Team and hope to have her teaching even more classes for us in the future!

Gym Teacher

Sian Baxter

Siân is a fully qualified British Gymnastics Level 2 General and Preschool gymnastics coach with 10 years experience including Rhythmic, women’s and men’s artistic gymnastics. Her passion for gymnastics started when she was 6 years old after joining her local gymnastics club. She fell in love with the sport and became a voluntary coach at the age of 12, spending her Saturday mornings coaching and Saturday afternoons training. She went on to complete her coaching proficiency award at 13 and started her coaching career at Esprit gymnastics in Swindon from there. At 14 years of age she was introduced to Rhythmic gymnastics and admired the differences between rhythmic and artistic. She worked alongside international coach and judge Deb Hows who successfully trained many gymnasts including Laura Halford from Esprit gymnastics who went on to win 2 Bronze and 2 silver medals in the Commonwealth games in 2014. Siân later went on to complete her British Gymnastics Level 1 at 16 and the following year, her level 2.

After leaving Esprit Gymnastics, Siân worked within the Wiltshire and Gloucestershire area with other clubs, running Preschool, Recreational and Squad classes full time. Her goal is to expand gymnastics out to more local areas so that gymnastics is more accessible for children and adults of all ages to take part and try something new – and hopefully fall in love with the sport like she did.

GUEST SINGING TEACHER

Emily Apps

She studied on the BA(Hons) Musical Theatre course at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Greenwich, London (formerly Trinity College of Music) and graduated with First Class Honours.

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