Hall of Fame
In Streetdance, our dancers have won the UDO World Championships at over 18 Level, come 2nd at under 12, come 3rd at under 10, come 4th at under and over 18 level and 5th at under 12. We were also the only Scottish Dance School chosen to perform at the 7 finals of the Commonwealth Games in front of a crowd of 15,000 people and our kids loved it. We were honoured and our dancers did Scotland proud.
In Jazz , Sarah Heron who was originally from Whitburn was given her first professional dancers contract at the famous Moulin Rouge in Paris. Sarah worked her way up from the chorus to be Head Girl in a glittering career of 14 years. Miss Saunders was invited to watch her perform in her first year and her final performance. She was so proud of Sarah remembering her from her first class with her to the amazing talent she had become. Sarah, ever the professional always performed beautifully and through her hard work and determination deserved all the success she achieved. A wee lassie from Whitburn with a big dream that SHE made come true.
In Ballet, Danceworld was given the opportunity to dance alongside the famous Russian State Ballet for 4 years running and due to the Russian war this cancelled. Our ballerinas loved the experience and learned lots from the professional soloists and ballet master. Also in ballet, several of our children were awarded prestigious scholarships for The Dance School of Scotland. Reiss Dunn who went on to teach and coach with Danceworld. He took our dancers to the World Championships gaining success after success. Lucy Bryce became a fully qualified RAD teacher and is now Danceworld’s Head of Ballet. She holds a 100% pass rate on all our childrens and vocational ballet exam entries with the Royal Academy of Dance. Megan Reidy excelled at the DSS then earned a place at Laine Theatre Arts in London and is now currently working professionally in London. Lyndsey Haggarty another promising Danceworld dancer was also awarded a scholarship but had to pull out due to injury.
Musical theatre plays a large part in ships that cruise around the world . as a singer or/and dancer has been the dream job for several of our dancers. Leanne Fell did this for over 8 years and now lives in Texas with her husband and two lovely girls. Samantha Solley had a fabulous dance career all over America and lives in Jacksonville Florida. Lauren Cunningham sailed the seas contract after contract as a singer/dancer who wowed audiences daily for many years and is now a manager and competition team coach and teacher at Danceworld. Lauren’s drive, ambition and talent is invaluable in the training of our dancers where she passes on all her performing knowledge to our lovely young dancers.
In lyrical and jazz our competition teams (Starstruck and Elevate) have won bids to the World Championships and also the Summit World Competition in Florida. They have also won Scottish titles and have a very busy season ahead.
Our newest competition genre is acro and our team Elite have done brilliantly under the supervision of coach Miss Kayleigh. They have made finals in Blackpool and Scotland and we are sure they have a very bright future ahead.
More dancers from Danceworld have gone on to train professionally in either Scotland or England than any of the local Lothian dance schools and we estimate that we have trained more than 30 dancers who have gone on to teach either with Danceworld or are teaching in neighbouring towns. We are so proud that our training academy produces top class teachers and dancers. One of our motto’s is “Action speaks louder than words” and we have always stood by this.
