Toni Hesketh

Programme Manager

Toni is the Programme Manager for Step into Dance. She began her dance training at a young age in Ballet and Tap before moving on to explore Musical Theatre and later Street dance.

She continued her practice throughout her school years studying it at GCSE, A Level and later opting to study Dance at the University of Surrey. During her degree, she studied a range of practical and theoretical modules including Contemporary Practices, training in Contemporary, Contemporary-African, Bharatanatyam and Ballet as well as studying modules in Choreography, Movement Analysis, Dance History, Arts Programming and a range of Theatre and Production Modules. In her third year, she completed a placement at English National Ballet working in their Engagement team across a number of outreach programmes for nine months, solidifying her desire to work with and support young people in their development and provide them with opportunities to access dance. Her placement also inspired her Dissertation topic, which explored the reworking of classical ballets by contemporary companies.

Her favourite dance style is Contemporary because she really enjoys the free-flowing nature of this style and the role of weight/centre of gravity throughout the movements.