Amy Jelfs Balbi
Owner Director
Amy has trained in Ballet, Jazz and Tap from the age of 4. She attended Newtown High School Of The Performing Arts, Australia's leading Performing Arts High School, where she developed her skills in Modern and Contemporary. She complete her Certificate 4 in Performing Arts at Brent St, earning her a spot in Sydney's leading Dance agency. Professionally Amy performed at many corporate events, including the opening of Fox Studios and the launch of Super Bowl Australia. Some other highlights include performing in Disneyland LA, the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games, and dancing behind stars such as Marcia Hines, Kylie Minogue and Chris Isaak. She toured with two Children entertainment shows The Powerpuff Girls and The Noddy Show.
She found her true love being back in the class room teaching and sharing her knowledge with her students.
Amy ran a successful dance studio in Randwick Sydney for 12 years, selling it in 2018 with over 300 students. Being a studio owner is something Amy is passionate about. She loves to find the missing pieces that students need to fulfil their goals and make their dreams become a reality.
Laura Kate Terry
Contemporary Lyrical Ballet
Laura-kate Terry fell in love with dance when she was 14 when she was given the opportunity to perform with the the byron ballet company corps de ballet. Over eight years of hard work laura-Kate worked her way through the corps de ballet and is now currently a principal dancer with the company. Within this time with byron ballet company laura-Kate has been privileged to perform in ballets such as; the nutcracker Coppélia Peter and the Wolf, Les Sylphides, Paquita and Swan Lake. Her favourite production was performing the Chosen One in Rite of Spring.
Laura-Kate trained in Cecchetti ballet and prepared for auditions! In 2009 Laura-Kate was honoured to be selected to study full time dance at The Queensland Dance School of Excellence, it was here Laura-Kate was mesmerised by contemporary dance. Upon graduating from Queensland Dance School of Excellence in 2010 Laura-Kate was one of two selected to join Lucid Dance Theatre under Artistic Director, Louise Deleur. In 2012 Laura-Kate successfully auditioned for Queensland University of Technology and secured a placement studying a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance Performance, where she worked with choreographers such as Csaba Buday, Sammi Williams, Jason Duff and Graeme Murphy. Laura-Kate is now focusing on sharing her wealth of knowledge and love of dance to the next generation of dancers.
Kerry Farriss
RAD Ballet
Kerry Farriss ARAD is a Royal Academy of Dance registered ballet teacher (RAD
RTS) with 15 years teaching experience in RAD ballet.
Kerry studied dance in Brisbane at QUT and graduated with an Associate
Diploma of Arts – Dance and then completed a Bachelor of Arts with a major in
Psychology at UQ.
Kerry has worked at the RAD headquarters in London as registrar for distance
learning courses. Kerry is also a qualified personal trainer and integrative
Health Coach, specializing in post natal women and children.
Meet The Team
Our team of highly skilled professionals are all qualified in their field.
Sher Manu
Jazz Musical Theatre
Choreography
Carly Franklin
Ready Set Dance
Jazz & Tap
Carly Franklin began dancing at age five, learning the styles jazz, tap and ballet.
Training under the guidance of some of the industry’s best choreographers, Carly completed her Certificate IV in Performing Arts at Brent Street full time, earning her a spot in Sydney’s leading dance agency, Detour, run by PJ Clarke.
In her time as a commercial dancer, Carly worked across stage, film and fashion.
She danced for Marcia Hines and Kylie Minogue in the opening of Fox Studios, performed in the opening of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and appeared in several film clips for local artists including Natalie Bassingthwaite, KidMac & Australian Idol winner Wes Carr.
Other career highlights include performing at the Music Oz Awards and Disneyland Los Angeles. Contracts took her to Spain, Macau and Japan. She featured in a TV commercial for Vidal Sasson in Bangkok and Performed in numerous children's shows including Santa's Kingdom and Bananas in Pyjamas.
After traveling for many years, she found her passion was in the studio teaching her students. Carly taught at Dance Chora Randwick for 15 years, where she developed a strong rapport with the students and their families. She has taught at various Primary Schools in Sydney and gained the position of creative director at Coogee Public School, running their Dance and Drama Nida Production each year.
Carly is super excited to be starting her new chapter in Byron Bay. She looks forward to building new connections amongst the dance community while enriching the students at Dance Lab with her kind, patient and fun style.
Sue Page
Ballet
Sue has been a registered RAD Ballet Teacher for over 40 years. She ran a successful Ballet School in Bondi sending hundreds of dancers through their ballet exams. We are thrilled to have Sue back on board to teach our baby budding ballerinas.
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Sher Manu has had a passion for Dance and creative expression, telling stories through dance for a large part of her life. Spending most of her childhood days in the Dance studio, fine tuning her Jazz & Tap skills, she knew she had found her passion. Becoming the director of her own Dance studio in her late teens, Sher used this time to hone and practice her Choreographic skills for many years to come. After a successful 10 year experience in this Director’s role, Sher moved to the UK to explore Choreographic opportunities abroad. Here, Sher was offered the role of Choreographer in the Professional production of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ the Pantomime in Cork, Ireland, amongst various other projects, including assisting in the auditions for Disney’s, ’High School Musical UK’ in London. Sher returned to Australia to work on 'So You Think You Can Dance Australia’ and was fortunate to work on Seasons 2 & 3 & more recently was hired as a Contemporary choreographer on the hit series ‘Dancing with the Stars’. Sher’s Choreography is often described by people as ‘Innovative, Quirky, Clever and Unpredictable’. Sher is currently based in beautiful Byron Bay, NSW working as a Freelance Choreographer and is grateful to still be in the dance studio, creating stories with passionate dancers.