Joy Foxley is a qualified and experienced teacher, who taught for many
years in a variety of primary schools in the Nottingham area. During that
time as part of her extra-curricular activities she ran a number of in-service
courses for teachers in English folk dance and song, and taught children's
dance teams.
She is an accomplished dance MC for British social dances or ceilidhs
(she generally works with Freds
Folks band or instrumentalists from it), as well as a folk singer
and clog dancer.
Joy became interested in Indian dance in the 1970s, and started her Indian
dance career under Nilima Devi at the Nilmani Kathak Kendra (now the Centre
for Indian Classical Dance) in Leicester. After taking first year
Kathak examinations there, she resigned her job as a primary school teacher,
and went to India to further her Kathak dance. She studied in Baroda under
Janaki Ben Damle, obtaining First Class certificates in both her third
year and fourth year examinations.
Since then she has extended her knowledge of Kathak with further studies
of Lucknowi tradition under the internationally famous Kumudini Lakhia,
the celebrated dancer and choreographer, at her Kadamb
centre for dance and music in Ahmedabad.
Since Joy's return to England, she conducts workshops on Kathak
dance, combined with performances and exhibition material as appropriate,
and takes adult classes in British folk dancing. She works also in co-operation
with Bisakha Sarker at Chaturangan.
She has given workshops in Nottingham (at a number of schools, including
Bluebell Hill Infant, Douglas Primary, Dunkirk Primary, Fernwood Infant,
Firbeck Primary, James Peacock Infant, Musters Road Infant, Shepherd School,
West Bridgford Comprehensive and Basford Hall College), Chesterfield,
Surrey, Middlesex, and for the ILEA in London.
She is now specialising in storytelling with schools and adult groups
as well as dancing.
Joy has animated the Chota Hathi story (her own version of one of Rudyard
Kipling's "Just So" stories with music specially composed by
Atul Desai) in both English and German
versions, and has written the Hafiz the
Stone cutter story with music specially composed by Chris Davis.
For further information contact Joy directly (Joy Foxley, 31 Greenfield
Street, Dunkirk, Nottingham NG7 2JN, UK, phone ++44-115-9786858) or by
E-mail.