Tani Jakins
Cert IV TAE, Cert III in Dance
Tani was born into a theatrical family during the Australian arts boom of the 70's. She started dance classes at the age 2 with her mother, then began Classical Ballet with
Tovio Taves and Susan Thompson at Camberwell District Ballet, where she trained to Intermediate Cecchetti Syllubus.
Tani also learnt gymnastics and trained in Jazz and Acting at Tony Bartuccio's in Melbourne and also received training at the Dance Factory and The National Theatre Ballet School. As a young adult, Tani trained in ballet with Brian Nolan and Flamenco with Pamela Apostolides at Danceworld.
Tani has toured Australia with Festival Circus where she performed as an aerialist, clown, pony trainer and magician assistant. She played drums in the live band and learned theatrical rigging. Tani has also worked backstage as a mechanist for The Australian Opera and her other passion is art and design having studied graphics, photography and fine art as well as pavement art. She has also poured her skills into costuming and couture, set design, and photography.
As an adult, and inspired by Riverdance, Tani took up Irish Dancing. She took classes with world champion Raymond Ayres and also returned to her roots of Burlesque, Vaudeville, Parody and Comedy Fringe performing in shows across Melbourne, as soloist Painfully Audacious and with comedy dance trio The Cha Cha's. She also taught strength and flexibility classes at Bottom's Up Dance School. Tani participated in tap and jazz classes with Naomi Brown at Downtown Dance Academy and gained qualifications and worked in editorial hair and makeup design.
Tani moved to the Ballarat area in 2014 and returned to dance with The Australian Irish Dance Company Ballarat and found The Academy of Classical Ballet in October 2015 where she successfully attained Grades 4, Grade 5, Intermediate Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced Foundation RAD ballet examinations as well as participated in The Academy's Intensive Training Program through which she successfully attained the Nationally Accredited Certificate II in Dance in 2019 and Certificate III in Dance in 2020.
Miss Tani is extremely passionate about ballet and the importance of the arts for the development of healthy well-rounded children and adults of all ages – mind, body and soul.