Our presenter for the evening will be the fantastic Gavin Mintus, Broadcast Journalist at BBC Radio Leeds.
Gavin’s passion is to entertain people. He studied in Media Productions and loved every minute of it. Following this course he went on to work at Galaxy FM in technical operating, producing and presenting and Gavin is now working for the BBC.
This week we welcome contemporary dancer, Gwenny Rose Robson, to the Fashion Bites Back team. She’ll be part of our fantastic line up for the evening.
Derby Dance Centre was an integral part of Gwenny’s early performing experiences, working with Fleur Darkin, Mavin Khoo, Claire Cunningham and Laila Diallo. Aged seventeen she was accepted at the London Contemporary Dance School.
Her highlights include performing with LC3, the third year touring company and her graduation performances when chosen for Cult by Hofesh Shechter. In her final year she created a duet in collaboration with composer, Jane Heberd and musicians from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. More recently Gwenny completed a Postgraduate Diploma at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. She currently works coaching dance classes for Pineapple Studios in Leeds and York.
This week we had the pleasure of welcome Penny Suzanne Wood to the team as our choreographer for Fashion Bites Back. Originally from Featherstone, West Yorkshire, Penny started her athletic and creative life at the age of 4 as a competitive gymnast. It was in 1989 she began to compete at a national level & did so for over 10 years.
Penny then changed her focus to The performing Arts. After studying it at school and college she took the next step into the dancing world where she auditioned and earned a place at the prestigious ‘Laban’ a contemporary dance school in London. Whilst there worked with Lea Anderson, Wayne McGregor & Random dance Company to name but a few and majored in choreography and dance film production.
Since leaving Laban Penny has expanded her horizons and style performing in London as part of commercial girl band Princess and dancing and modelling for artists such as Five, John Maobi, Ministry of Sound, Little Man Tate & Jade Jones as well as choreographing several dance films and projects in her own right
In 2007 she moved out to Sydney Australia to continue her career, dancing for the DIVA awards and working closely with the dancers and choreographers of the Australian ‘So you think you can dance’ including Hip/Hop masters Tabitha & Napoleon, Jesse Rasmussen & Gillian Myers. It was also whilst in Australia that she found a bigger passion and love for modelling and was published in several magazines along with doing successful TV commercials & runway events.
Throughout her time since leaving Laban she has also Choreographed & Modelled for a whole host of different events and has taught in many dance schools in both London, Sydney & Leeds.
She recently went through to the Miss Universe Great Britain finals where over £30,000 was raised for charity.
As well as being an accomplished performer, choreographer and model in many fields Penny is currently working as a successful Body Piercing Artist. She is also very passionate about getting back into the vocal side of her talent so that will be something to watch out over the coming year.
At 26 years of age Penny believes she will still be creating new work and expanding her creative mind for many many years and always looks forward to new prospects and the opportunity to work with more inspiring talents and artists.
We’re on the look out for models to join us for “Fashion Bites Back”, our fashion show to raise awareness and funds for the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign against malaria.
We have a line up of incredibly talented young fashion designers who will be showcasing their individual collections and a net inspired garment. The evening will take place at 7.30pm on Saturday 8 October, and will combine creative fashion with entertainment by the catwalk. It will be a night of celebration and entertainment and all proceeds will go towards sending bed nets to Africa. We’re delighted to be hosting the event at Northern Ballet.
Our model casting day will take place from 1-4pm on Saturday 30 July at Boudoir Club, 174 Lower Briggate, LS1 6DT Leeds. For more information or to register your attendance, contact our Model Casting Director, Janita Kajese.
