Centre Stage School of the Arts

Teachers

Becky Clarke

Teacher in Dance, Drama and Music

University of Winchester - BA (Hons) Performing Arts

Becky is from Sussex, England and is trained in ISTD Modern, Tap and Ballet. She also has vast experience in Street Jazz, Hip Hop, Singing and Acting. Prior to arriving in Singapore, Becky’s teaching experience included working in Shanghai, China and in schools in the UK. In the past, she has taught a variety of courses, from Ballet and Street Jazz to Drama and Musical Theatre, including training children for exams in ISTD and RAD dance and Trinity Guildhall Performance and Drama courses. Her students’ ages range from 16 months to 18 years! Becky is also a skilled choreographer, having choreographed for events such as the turning on of the Christmas lights in Times Square, Shanghai, numerous promotional events, school productions and Pantomimes, including Snow White.

Becky is a talented performer herself having appeared in productions such as The Blues Brothers Party, The Ragged Child, The Full Monty Musical, The Boyfriend, Aladdin and Dick Whittington.In addition to her passion for the performing Arts, Becky also loves to draw and paint in her spare time. Her other interests include cooking, reading and traveling.

Owen Belliveau

Teacher in Early Years

Australian National University - BA Psychology and BA Arts majoring in Philosophy

Owen was born in Canada, and graduated from Australian National University with a B/A Psychology and B/A Arts majoring in Philosophy. Owen then spent time traveling and wound up in Taiwan where he has been teaching English at university grade and below for the past three years. During his time in Taiwan he developed a drama program for his employers and began acting in productions of Shakespeare and assorted films. Owen joined Centre Stage in 2010 and is looking forward to furthering his acting career and his time to come at Centre Stage. His interests include photography, traveling, cooking and reading.

Glyn Connop

Teacher in Drama

Rose Bruford Academy - BA Community Theatre

Glyn was born in Worcester in central England and is trained in drama. He also did extensive training in clowning with the world renowned Phillip Gaulier. Glyn now has been acting and teaching for more than that spans back 20 years.

Having worked for many professional Theatre Companies and played a variety of roles which has included Sebastian in The Tempest and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream for the English Shakespeare Company. He has worked for M6 Theatre Company, Pentabus Theatre, Cambridge Touring, Ape Theatre and also The National Trust Theatre to name a few. With most of these companies Glyn was also responsible for writing and leading theatre workshops. Glyn was a director for the Bromley Churchill youth theatre where he directed and applauded by critics and audiences and received a number of awards. Glyn has also regularly toured Europe with a number of circus troupes

In 2001, Glyn joined TNT Theatre. This was the start of a long collaboration with the company, and his work included, Harding in One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Horatio in Hamlet, Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet and Montag in Fahrenheit 451. In September of 2008, Glyn began his was delighted to join the teaching ranks at Centre Stage. Whilst teaching drama, Glyn continued with his acting career playing the part of Lord Piliwocket in Snow Worries and Old Nicky Norbutter in A Right Rubbish Christmas; he was also involved in The Ensembles production of Two and played the part of Serge in Art. For the past year Glyn has been living in Krakow (Poland) with his lovely wife Anna. Whilst living in Europe Glyn went back on another tour of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, this show toured to over 30 countries worldwide. He is absolutely delighted to be moving back to Singapore and coming back to work with all the lovely people that make up Centre Stage.

Matthew Gardener

Teacher in Musical Theatre & Singing

Bretton Hall - Degree in Musical Theatre
Royal Academy of Music - Trained as Musical Director

Since graduating, Matthew has worked as a Musical Director, musician and teacher. Theatre credits include Blood Brothers, Scrooge (Bill Kenwright Ltd, National Tours), Tracy Beaker Gets Real (Nottingham Playhouse, National Tour) and Jesus Christ Superstar (Stadium Tour, Scandinavia). Matthew has composed music for Blue Orange (Peacock Theatre, London), MTV Television and was the musical accompanist on Cranford (BBC Television).

Matthew has taught Performing Arts to both children and adults for drama schools, youth groups and holiday courses, including Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts and West End Experience. In 2006 he worked as the Director of a youth theatre in Dubai, for which he wrote and composed a musical. He was the choral conductor for a production of The Mikado in the UK with a cast of 60 children and young adults, and was a Tutor of Musical Theatre at a 6th Form College in the North West of England last year. He is delighted to be in Singapore and is really looking forward to working at Centre Stage.

Nicola Williams

Teacher in Early Years, Music Box and Drama

Redroofs Theatre School – Diploma in Musical Theatre
Royal Academy Of Dance – Certificate of Ballet.
Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing – Tap.Originally from Bournemouth, England it was there Nicola developed her passion for performing, Having decided she would like to pursue performing as career Nicola found herself winning a third part bursary for Redroofs Theatre School.

During her training years, she earned herself invaluable experience working for Warner Bro’s, filming six months for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows. Upon graduating she then spent a further three years working for Stagecoach Theatre Arts, directing and performing alongside her students in productions and workshops.

This is Nicola’s first time living in South East Asia, and is very about starting her work here at Centre Stage. Nicola also enjoys playing the guitar, watching foreign films and baking brownies!

Liliana Durlai

Teacher in Ballet

City University - MA Culture Policy & Management
Royal Academy of Dance - Professional Dancer's Teaching Diploma
School of Choreography and Dramatic Art (Romania) - Vaganova Syllabus

Liliana has been a professional ballet dancer with the Croatia National Theatre, Split, the English National Ballet and the Vienna Festival Ballet.

In 2001 she completed the Professional Dancer's Teaching Diploma with the Royal Academy of Dance in London and she has been embracing a teaching career ever since - teaching and choreographing for the London Theatre School in London, the Vienna Festival Ballet and The Ballet & Music Company in Singapore.

After completing her MA in Culture Policy & Management she was appointed as a Community Dance Project Manager for the Trust Arts Project Lambeth in London.

We are lucky to have found a teacher with such a rich history and experience of both the dance and ballet-teaching worlds.

Ezekiel Oliveira

Teacher in Ballet & Contemporary Dance

London Contemporary Dance School 2007 - BA Hons Contemporary Dance
3 year intensive training in new circus at Chapito in Lisbon

Ezekiel Oliveira is an independent dance artist originally from Portugal; a multi talented dance artist and educator – teaching contemporary dance techniques to students and professional dancers such as floor work, release, double work, contact improvisation, composition in real time and choreography.

Ezekiel has designed a creative dance programme for children from the age of 6 months up to teenagers. The premise of this programme is to develop dance from an intuitive creative view point on the surroundings, through the use of story telling, theatre games, choreography and singing he will enable young children to create and learn dance.

At the age of 18 he completed a 3 year intensive training in new circus at Chapito in Lisbon, where he mastered different aerial and theatre techniques that proved later on to be the fundamentals of his work as a multi talented dance performer.

Ezekiel’s work as a dance educator started with the U.K. tour of the ‘Telling Tales’, a dance theatre performance for under 7’s. Throughout this extensive tour he delivered a creative dance programme for children.

In 2011 he created in collaboration with Fleur Darkin Company ‘Innocence’. ‘An exciting opportunity for 0-7 year olds (and their adults), to enter a realm of mystery, fun and adventure’.

For the creative process of this dance piece, he ran residencies with young children and toddlers to investigate the dance interests of the youngsters through theatre and story telling workshops, interactive set, live music, composition in real time and singing as a vehicle to learn dance.

As a member of Fleur Darkin Company he has lead residencies with professional dancers across the U.K during the national tour of ‘DisGo’ – creating innovative contemporary dance work that brings the audience on the stage with a company of professional dancers – exploring up close unique points of view on dance.

In the same year he was guest choreographer at Chichester University creating ‘Project 01’, a virtuosic dance piece – investigating the third body in a duet or ensemble of 20 dancers.

As a dance artist Ezekiel has worked for the following dance company's in Europe 2 Faced Dance Company; Taskforce; Telling Tales; Balbir Singh Dance Company, Animated State and Fleur Darkin Company, performing works by : Tamsin Fitzgerald, Hoffesh Shechter, Stephan Koplowitz, Helene Blackburn, Enrique Cabrera, Balbir Singh, Libby Seward, Mandy Dimitriou and Fleur Darkin.

Gemma Sharp

Teacher in Musical Theatre, Zumba & Bokwa

BA Hons Events Management
NVQ 3 Childcare, Learning and Development
IDTA Freestyle - student teachers certificate
California Pacific College of Performing Arts ‘The Young Americans’ – Class of 2005.

Gem grew up in Shropshire, England and has been performing since the age of 7. Following training in IDTA freestyle disco, she successfully gained a place on the England Dance Team and represented the country at competition in Los Angeles, California, She went on to study teaching and performance at the California Pacific College of Performing Arts with the prestigious group “The Young Americans”. Gem has a number of productions under her belt as a Director, Choreographer, Singer, Dancer and Actress in venues including the Royal Albert Hall, Her Majesty’s Theatre, London, Beverly Hills- Hilton as well as Disneyland Paris and California.

Gem’s CV is quite colourful with a number of qualifications and positions such as pre school teacher, teaching assistant, dance teacher, entertainments manager on board Brittany Ferries, head of performing arts at a summer camp in New York, touring tribute acts, solo cabaret singer, resident coat style entertainer and character work.

Gem has experience of working with all ages from the tiniest baby to the more senior grown up and actively promotes self-confidence through performance within her classes. Most recently Gem has been working for the Pauline Quirke Academy as musical theatre teacher and recently qualified to teach Zumba and Bokwa dance fitness programs.

Hobbies include a new found love for playing Ukulele, Traveling, Cooking and all things techy. Gem will be making the move to Singapore with her husband and is looking forward to sharing her passion for the arts with the talented students at Centre Stage.

Louise Ballantyne

Teacher in Drama

• Moray House, University of Edinburgh - PGDE in Secondary Drama - with Distinction

• Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh – BA in Acting

• Middlesex Polytechnic, London – Diploma in Dramatic Art

• Kirkcaldy College of Technology, Fife – Foundation Course in Drama Studies

• TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) Qualifications

Louise hails from Fife in Scotland but trained and lived in London for many years. Upon returning to Scotland, Louise decided to branch out into the teaching world and completed the PGDE in Secondary Education in Drama where she taught 12-18 year olds, for a couple of years. For the past 5 years, she has been employed as a Visiting Specialist Teacher of Drama, to children aged between 5-12 years, with Aberdeenshire Council.

Louise’s performing career spans more than 20 years working as a Professional Actor, in an assortment of settings, from the stage and TV to airports, schools and prisons! She has had a very “varied” career from playing, The Biker Chick’ in a Heinz commercial to playing Lady M, (twice - on separate occasions), in the famous Scottish play and Ophelia in Hamlet to more contemporary classics such as, Terry in William Mastrosimone’s Extremities; Lulu in an adaptation of Sartre’s Intimacy; Rowena in Sarah Daniels’ Masterpieces and lately some Professional Rehearsed Readings by new and aspiring writers, produced by Playwright Scotland. Louise has also worked as a Workshop Facilitator for WACtheatre, set up to promote and produce new writing in the North East of Scotland and came to realise, fairly quickly, that Directing has become her new passion, resulting in a move into this field, on numerous recent ventures.

Louise is very excited about her teaching post at Centre Stage and can’t wait to meet the rest of the team and all her students. Having always had an affinity with hot climates, she is looking forward immensely to being able to enjoy everything Southeast Asia has to offer - from exploring and travelling to perhaps participating in some further productions in and around Singapore.