Emma will be teaching the following workshops:

Combining improvisation with musical interpretation. Explore how to take your improvisation skills to the next level.

Theatre Tribal. Using cabaret type stage formations rather than standard tribal set ups to enhance your tribal performances.

An introduction to Lebanese style. Learn the elements of the style along with combinations to get you started.

Emma is a teacher and performer based in Reading. She started classes with Afra Al Kahira in 1994 who has been her prime source of inspiration and even after Afra moved to Devon in 2000 still acts as a mentor. Emma starting teaching in 1998, primarily as an assistant, and in 2001 started to run her own classes. She teaches all levels of dance but more recently has concentrated on intermediate/advanced level classes. She instigated Belly Robics in Reading – a high energy class based solely around belly dance movements which has proved to be very popular.

Emma likes to inspire and develop her students’ individual dance styles and encourages them to perform at every opportunity. However she fully understands that some students come along to classes for social reasons and that some of them do not share her love of performance! Emma performs at a number of local and national events and likes the opportunity to experiment with styles and props.

Emma teaches workshops for all levels and in many styles and has been a regular teacher at the annual Celebrating Dance Festival. She prefers to teach technique based workshops as she feels that a strong grounding in basic principles nurtures a more confident dancer, but fully understands that choreography based workshops have a lot of material that can be utilized for developmental purposes. Emma is currently working on combinations and choreographies that satisfy both technical and artistic aspects.

She is director of the popular performance troupe Cover Bling who specialize in improvised tribal fusion. Emma enjoys writing and teaching challenging choreographies which encourage team work as well as stretching even the most advanced dancers and draws her inspiration for structure and combinations both from what the music “says” to her but also from many other dance styles and even from television shows!

Emma has obtained her City in Guilds Part I in Teaching Adults and was the first person to be awarded an Al Kahira School of Middle Eastern Dance (ASMED) Teaching Diploma. She has continued to add to her knowledge of Middle Eastern Dance by private research as well as attending as many workshops as she can! Her favourite style of dance is Egyptian but she has an interest in a wide range of styles.

Visit Emma's very informative website: www.emmapyke.co.uk for details on Emma's classes and how to book her for performances and workshops.