Meet The Team

THE PRINCIPAL

Dawn Coucke - Dance Teacher - BATD.
Dawn is the schools founder, owner and principal. She has studied dance with the British Association Teachers of Dance.
At the age of 18 she started working on Cruise ships and following that she has worked and lived in various countries such as, Korea, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Greece and many more. She is also an accomplished choreographer and has created pieces for exam work and theatre.
 
Dawn's philosophy and school ethos: 
"Not only is it my passion to teach the pupils dance, performing arts and theatre but we also focus on life skills. Team building, mental well being and self belief. Skills that are being carried beyond the school. I encourage the pupils to step outside their comfort zone and be the best version of themselves. Classes often include a bit of wellness and guided meditation so the pupils leave fully relaxed"


THE TEAM

Gemma Thompson - Dance Teacher - BATD.
Gemma has been dancing, singing and performing from a very early age, in a sense since she was born. She could dance before she could walk. Gemma teaches the schools infants and is also trained to deal with children that might have additional needs. Her passion is the little ones and that shows in her work. Gemma also choreographs pieces for our productions. 

Lindsey Painter - Acrobatic Arts Certified Teacher. 
Lindsey is our cover dance teacher who is also a qualified acrobatics teacher and teaches our very popular acro classes.
She has been dancing from a young age and has won various dance competitions during that time. Lindsey is our energetic dance coach and also makes choreographs pieces for our shows and productions.

Faye Coucke - Dance Teacher - BATD.
Faye is our resident guest choreographer and when home from her studies she often joins our shows and productions. Faye has a BTEC in musical theatre and is currently studying for her BA Hons in performing arts degree in Performers Essex.

Angelo Coucke - Technical Manager.
Angelo has himself travelled the globe as an entertainer but has left that career long behind and volunteers at IDS to work on events and shows. Angelo runs a holistic healing practice and in his spare time takes care of all technical aspects of our shows and music. He also puts his artistic input into our shows and creates special effects and digital motion backdrop and video's for our productions, giving the shows that professional show look that IDS is well known for.