MEET THE TEAM
MEET THE TEAM
Our wonderful La Rouge instructors were asked to answer the following questions, here is what your instructors had to say!
- What style of dance have you specialized in & how many years’ experience do you have?
- Why do you love teaching?
- How has dance help/change your life?
- What are the hopes for your students that attend your classes?
Nataniel Pires
Training experience
- Hip Hop
- Modern Jazz
- Cabaret
- Burlesque
- Latin American Dancing
- Pole Dancing
- Aerial Silks, Lyra and various other aerial apparatus
I love to see how the confidence in every woman grows with each class. Every woman has their own motivations for joining a class that is quite often completely out of their comfort zone, yet it takes only a few lessons before they start transforming and embracing the strong, confident, and sensual woman that they already are inside.
I have always been drawn to dance. Dance has taught me so many things about life and who I am, dance offers a platform to express all my feelings from complete joy to the most difficult moments in my life, dance has helped me move through life with more ease, grace, and trust.
I trust that students joining my classes will feel comfortable to let go, express, and have fun. I know that each woman will discover their strength and reconnect with the beautiful sensual BE-ing that they are and have always been.
Professionally I have been dancing (choreography dance and freestyle) at various Live performances, Functions, Corporate Events, Launches and Casino Contract Shows both nationally & internationally since 2005.
Why I love dancing
Ever since I was little, I wanted to dance. I absolutely loved moving my body to music and posing in front of the mirror for hours. The passion I had for dance was clear to my mom and she sent me for dancing lessons when I was 5 years old, and that is where my dancing career began.
I enjoyed the fact that you get to feel music and interpret it with your bodies movements rather than just listening and hearing it. I loved the way dancing made me feel, it taught me to express myself in ways unimaginable, expression through dancing was truly self-healing for me.
How did dance help/change your life
When I was a young girl, I used to be incredibly shy and insecure. I loved dancing so much so, however it felt as if my insecurities were holding me back from my truest potential. At the time I was competing, I never placed in any of the competitions I took part in, as I could not fully express myself on the dance floor. One year, and I remember the moment in my life distinctly so, I decided I am going to just stop comparing myself to other dancers and just remember why I started dance in the first place, and that was, for the love of dance.
Let me tell you something, that moment changed my life, I became unstoppable and started to really feature as a top dancer within my circles. Letting go helped me to free myself of many of my insecurities in my personal life and helped me to embrace the woman that I am today.
What are your hopes for your students that attend your classes
- I want all my students to have fun while getting fit.
- I want everyone to know that we can all strut our stuff in our own beautiful way. Everyone should find their inner sassy fox.
- I want to share my knowledge of dance with my own students, as my instructors did with me, the value of a good instructor is priceless, and I choose to teach so that I can help others grow.
Angelique Gerber
Training experience
- Hip Hop
- Modern Jazz
- Cabaret
- Burlesque
- Latin American Dancing
- Pole Dancing
- Aerial Silks, Lyra and various other aerial apparatus
Justine Rico
- Trained in professional academies in France, Italy and Los Angeles
- Danced and choregraphed for production shows, musicals & cabaret since 2009
- Toured with a French artist for many years as a dancer
- Participated in SYTYCD in both France & Poland.
- 3 year worldwide tour in the production of Peter Pan
- A performer in Afrikaans se Groot & Krone
- 2019 the opening of a French Modern Cabaret company in South Africa
I love teaching! Through the experiences that I have gained over my many years as a dancer, I believe that I have much knowledge to share with those who choose to train with me. I truly believe that my years of training have made me who I am & further defined me for the beautiful human being that I am today. I trust that my learnings will guide many students to find their own inner expression of who they are really are.
Dance is the reason I am here on this earth today, when I was younger, I experienced a near death experience, dance became my anchor in life, it helped me to process and release my feelings through movement and self-expression.
My hopes through teaching would be to see progress in every student that I teach as an instructor. If the students I teach can progress even in the slightest way, whether it be through gaining more confidence, accepting oneself more, improving on ones techniques… no matter, there are so many ways to improve your self-worth through dance and I want to be there to see the change in each person that I teach.
