Teachers and Pianists
Julie Cronshaw
Director - RBS Dip TTC (FISTD) CDE Enrico Cecchetti Diploma.
Director Julie Cronshaw is a graduate of the Royal Ballet School's Teacher's Training Course and has danced professionally in ballet companies in Germany, the United States and Russia. She began teaching in the United States returning to England in 1994 to open Highgate Ballet School a year later. The Wood Street branch in Barnet was opened in 2001 and the Hendon branch in 2009.
Having attained her CDE in Dance Teaching in Spring 2007, securing the school's future as a Cecchetti school, Julie gained her Cecchetti Diploma in 2009 and Fellowship (the highest teaching award given by the ISTD) in 2010.
Julie guest teaches regularly in Paris. She is a founder member of the Auguste Vestris Society, a non-profit, Paris based teaching organisation which is dedicated to promoting classical ballet, particularly the work of great ballet masters such as Enrico Cecchetti and August Bournonville. She has written several articles for the Vestris Society to accompany the series of 'White Nights' Masterclasses in Paris between November 2009 - July 2011, celebrating Russian, French and Italian ballet masters of the 20th century and at which she has taught a Cecchetti Thursday class and co-hosted an evening comparing the Italian and French schools of pointework.
Maddy Wynne Jones
Maddy Wynne-Jones trained in Canada in the 7 year Professional Ballet Stream at the Ottawa School of Ballet. Upon graduation of the course she completed her formal training in the Graduate Intensive Programme at Arts Umbrella in Vancouver, before transferring her emerging career to London. Here she worked as a freelance ballet and contemporary dancer before founding Tempered Body, a professional contemporary dance company, in 2007. In 2009 she was appointed Artist in Residence at Chisenhale Dance Space in East London. She has been teaching at the Highgate Ballet School since 2007, and in 2009 developed the Highgate Ballet School Youth Dance Company.
Maddy gained her Diploma in Dance Instruction for the Cecchetti branch of the the ISTD in Spring 2012.
Despina Kefalidi
Originally from Athens, Greece Despina is a graduate of the London Studio Centre's course in musical theatre with a BA Hons Degree. She has been living and teaching in London for four years and freelances as a performer and teacher. She teaches the tap and musical theatre classes in Highgate and Jacksons Lane, as well as the pre-ballet classes on Saturdays.
Melanie Quevedo: Teacher
Originally from Ile de Re, France, Melanie trained at the conservatoires of La Rochelle and Poitiers gaining a dance teaching Diploma and a Diploma in choreography and technique studies. She has performed with Junior Ballet d'Aquitaine and Lisarco Danza. Further studies led to a BA in Italian, English literature and Art at the University of Poitiers and a post graduate Diploma from Laban in London. She freelances as a dancer and teacher in London and works with the Tempered Body Dance Company.
Rebecca Duschl
Originally from the USA, Rebecca trained under Patricia Wilde at the Pittsburgh Ballet School, Pennsylvania. She gained a BFA in Dance and a BA in English at Mason Gross School for the Arts, Rutgers University, New Jersey where she also danced and worked as a teacher and assistant in ballet and contemporary classes. She has worked with Nimbus Dance Company NJ and Transitions Dance Company, and in London at Laban as rehearsal assistant, helped with student workshops and productions and as a freelance dancer and teacher, gaining an MA in Dance performance in 2010.
Valerie Borg
Valerie Borg started dancing at the age of 3 at the Princess Tanya Bayona Poutiatinee Academy and later with the Debbie McNamara School of Dance in Malta. She has performed as a young dancer on Italian television, in dance competitions and festivals and in numerous productions in Malta. She started assisting and teaching ballet and jazz to children during this time.
In the UK she has studied tap, singing and acting at the London Studio Centre and has assisted and taught for the Susan Zalcman school of Ballet and at Chelsea Ballet schools. She has her DDI (Diploma in Dance Instruction) and is completing her DDE (Diploma in Dance Education) in Cecchetti Method under Cara Drower this year.
Igor Mukhortov: Pianist
Barbara Massey: Assistant
Justin Stevens: Pianist
Morta Grigaliunaite: Pianist
Juan Jose Ochoa Torres: Pianist
Emil Duncumb: Pianist
