BARETOED - Key Persons
Jo has an extensive background in teaching and facilitating for groups of all ages for 20 years. She holds qualifications in performing arts and aromatherapy massage therapy and has worked as a freelance community artist, performer and therapist. Whilst working in after school clubs and teaching English as a Foreign Language, Jo began to focus on creativity as a way to inform learning, development and well being for children. As a dancer, she has explored numerous techniques including 5 Rhythms, contact improvisation, acrobalance, movement meditation and aerial dance. More recently and as a lover of nature, she has had some training in Mountain Leadership and loves any opportunity to work, dance and play outdoors. Jo's work with Bare Toed combines her varied professional experience, her passion for movement play and dance and her instinctive empathy when working with children and families.
Lynn has over ten years experience as a primary school teacher, a teacher for children with special needs and as a special needs advisory teacher. She gave up teaching in 1998 to complete her Dance Movement Psychotherapy MA at The Laban Centre and to develop her work as a Movement Therapist and as a dance artist.
Lynn has also studied with The National Childbirth Trust and is an Active Birth Teacher offering movement for pregnancy sessions and Baby Yoga Play sessions with babies 0 - crawling and their mums. In 2013 Lynn qualified as a Movement Medicine teacher and is enjoying bringing these new skills to her work with Bare Toed and to creating opportunities for adults to explore dance, creativity and well-being.
Rachel's rich creative background - ballet, visual arts, dancer and theatre performer, aerial dance artist, running independent creative businesses, and being a parent all inform her role as a director/facilitator for Bare Toed. Rachel left school after A levels and spent the next few years travelling, dabblingand gathering experience before starting a family and a business in 1994. In 1996 Rachel started studying Gabrielle Roth's ‘5 Rhythms' (www.gabrielleroth.com) improvisational movement practice, qualifying as a teacher in 2001. She continues to both study, teach (www.deeperdance.org.uk) and be inspired by 5 Rhythms in all her work. Rachel has a long-term interest in psychology and has completed several short courses at the Geastalt Centre in London. She is particularly interested in research into the effects of creativity and movement play on child development.
Rachel started dancing ballet at the age of 3 and at 13 decided that it was not a career path she wanted to follow. She gathered valuable life experience through performance, travelling and working abroad, running independent creative businesses, and becoming a parent, exploring a variety of artistic media along the way but never quite losing touch with her dancing. Her love of movement eventually found an outlet through 5 Rhythms dance, which she trained to teach in 2001 and she continues to study, teach (www.deeperdance.org.uk) and be inspired by. She also dances in the air for Bare Toed performances and as a free-lance aerialist and is a keen gardener and lover of the outdoors. Fascinated by people and psychology, Rachel has and HEFC in the subject from Northumbria University and has attended several short courses at the Gestalt Centre in London. She is particularly interested in research into creativity and movement play in relation to child development and neurology.