Casteallo, Dorna

With all of my experience, as a performer, teacher and choreographer – my most rewarding experience is working with young people. Providing them with the ability to express themselves through dance and movement, and feel a sense of achievement, is what I believe a teacher should do. Introducing dance into the school curriculum provides an opportunity for many children to develop a talent that they ordinarily may not have the chance to access at a young age. If I can help to develop a belief in that talent, then I can say that I have fulfilled my role.

My education and experience is as follows:

Dance has played an important role within my life since I was 3 years old, taking dance lessons and entering competitions in modern, tap and ballet. When I left school, I soon went on to extend my passion and knowledge for dance by attending college where I obtained a Foundation qualification for dance. Parallel to my training at college, I also attended the Weekend Arts College (WAC), where I took additional classes and became a member of the youth group, The Fusion Dance and Drama Company. Whilst a member of Fusion, we toured the UK arts festival circuit, and took par in The Dance Umbrella festival and the Edinburgh festival – (I returned to a year later with my own youth group.) Not only did this provide me with the experience of learning drama but it was at this point, I was provided the opportunity to choreograph my fellow piers.



I trained for 3 years at the Laban Centre, where I obtained my in diploma in Dance. During that time I attended the Alvin Ailey dance company in New York, to train during the summer months. After obtaining my diploma I was asked to return to WAC to take up my first official teaching post. At this time I wanted to widen my dance experience by joining the Jiving Lindy Hoppers dance group, eventually teaching their youth workshops. During this period my main focus was to concentrate on my continued training and choreography, so I was delighted to be given the opportunity to choreograph recording artists from boy bands, such as World’s Apart through to experimental groups working for Gilles Peterson’s Record label. This allowed me to work with performers who had a varied understanding of dance.



In order to extend my knowledge of dance and movement, I have qualified as a Pilates Instructor, teaching children and adults both mat and machine exercises. This has enabled me to get young people to understand the human body from a dancer’s point of view – such as correct posture and centring.



For the last fifteen years I have been teaching at Sylvia Young theatre school, which has eventually led me to a full time role, teaching GCSE dance. This has meant that I have had to undertake formal training for the requirements of this examination. This experience has enabled me to develop team skills, working with other teachers under very pressurized condition in order to help the children succeed. To date we have a 100% pass rate. In addition to this role, I also currently teach at different primary schools, providing classes for children from reception through to year 6 – building towards school shows for parents. In particular, my work with students at the Collins Performing Arts College uses both Contemporary dance and Pilates techniques in our training towards their graduation performance shows.



When teaching children in non-arts schools, my focus has been to get children to appreciate different dance styles and music, by working on using everyday movement. I get them to evaluate their own strengthens and weakness in performance by critiquing each other using dance terminology. The most challenging part of teaching primary and secondary school children is persuading boys to take a more active role, however I have managed to overcome this introducing girl and boys sections within performance. In addition, I encourage the students to watch TV music performances and study/note how partners perform and move.



Introducing Pilates to lessons, provides the students with an explanation as to how the muscle works, making dance and movement more interesting for them. With a large dance vocabulary, I am able to incorporate a range of different dance styles into their work, from Street and Jazz through to Contemporary and Ballet. The explanation of movement has been important to distinguish the differences in dance styles. My experience of performing a range of dance styles means that I use this to demonstrate the differences to younger children.



With all my present and past experience as a teacher and performer, I have always tried to encourage children to explore their own ideas and extend their knowledge. Introducing a wide range of dance techniques has allowed me to open up dance and choreography to children with a range of abilities, giving a feeling of inclusion at every level. My experienced has highlighted to me the importance of creating a caring and supportive environment, as well as striving to ensure that children are always in a safe, welcoming and friendly atmosphere. I believe this brings out the best work from students.



Teaching has led me to get involved with setting up a number of workshops as a Dancer, Youth Worker and child co-ordinator. I have worked in conjunction with a number of organisations including the Y.M.C.A. bringing me into contact with a wide range of dance abilities and groups.



More recently I have been invited to set up dance and performance workshops for disabled children. This I feel is my most rewarding work to date, as you really experience their own sense of enjoyment and achievement. I have also worked with 16+ groups helping them towards their further education and future in dance. With these groups the aim was to raise their skills in drama and performance, through producing and analysing their own work. At present I am working on a community project to organise a fashion and dance performance with the V&A museum.

Contact details
Mrs Dorna Casteallo
07932 00 86 87
dpmailuk@lycos.co.uk

Primary Art Form
Dance

Other Artform categories
Choreographer
Contemporary Dance
Jazz
Performance Art
Street / Club Dance