Our Team

Miss Lovick Owner and Creative Director

Miss Lovick trained at the prestigious Laine Theatre Arts and graduated with the College Diploma and ISTD teaching qualifications in Classical Ballet, Modern Theatre and Tap dance. After college she went on to have a successful professional performing career working in Spain and Italy in television and theatre as a dancer, singer, actor and choreographer working with many of the top TV directors, choreographers and producers. Miss Lovick is a Licentiate of the ISTD and is continually working on her professional development as an educator of dance. She is a qualified Acrobatic Arts Progressive Ballet Technique. She has trained with Lisa Howell completing the specialised training for Level 3 Pointe work and Level 2 Flexibility. She is a member of the Dance school Safe guarding association
Miss Lovick is passionate about helping the young dancers find the joy and beauty of dance.

Miss Helen Cheesman LLDS Studio Director

Miss Helen – DDE Modern and Tap, MA (Musical Theatre) PBT
Miss Helen is our studio director who manages and works on the smooth running on the school. She teaches many genres at the school including Ballet, Modern, Tap, Street/Commercial and Singing. She has trained at Bird College and the prestigious Mountview Academy of Performing Arts, where she has a Master of Arts in Musical Theatre Performance. Miss Helen also holds a BA Hons degree from the University of Exeter. Whilst there, she was a member of the winning dance/pom team at the National University Dance Championships.

Miss Helen has a passion for dance and musical theatre and her specialty is Tap. As a young girl she was a member of the National Youth Music Theatre and the National Youth Choirs of Great Britain. She also trained for many years in Irish Dance and performed at the World Irish Dance Championships in Belfast, 2008 and London, 2014.
Having overcome injury in the past, she is passionate about safe dance practice and and building strong technical foundations for all our LLDS pupils to grow from.

Miss Melinda Traves - Head of BalletMAE, BFA, RAD, RTS, ISTD

Melinda Green Traves – Head of Ballet
Miss Melinda teaches Classical Ballet, Pointe and Pre-pointe, and Ballet Repertoire. She has been teaching and choreographing for LLDS for over 12 years! Miss Melinda also offers online and in-person private ballet tuition for students who want specialised training, extra exam or assessment work, or need help with dance studies.
Miss Melinda is also a Lecturer in Dance Education at the Royal Academy of Dance.
She teaches across the BA(Hons) in Ballet Education and MA in Education (Dance Teaching) programmes, including ballet technique, ballet repertoire, philosophy of dance, and somatic approaches to dance teaching. As well as supervising student dissertations and tutoring on the RAD’s dance teacher placement programme. Melinda holds Registered Teacher Status with the RAD, is an ISTD Affiliate Member, and is a Silver Swans licensee.

Miss Jo Asher - Galaxy Program Manager DDE Ballet, Modern and Tap, PBT

Jo Asher started training at the Dorothy Marshall School before moving to the Margaret Durrant School of Dancing. She has completed her professional dance exams with the ISTD in Ballet, Modern and Tap. She is a registered member of the ISTD

Miss Jo has been teaching with us since we started in 2008. She teaches Ballet, Tap and Modern at our Saturday school and is a valuable member of the Saturday team.

Miss Jo is our Galaxy Program Manager and is responsible for the development, organisation and structure of our Year 1 and 2, Galaxy stars pupils. Laying the foundations and building on the basic principles of Modern, Tap and Ballet technique.

Miss Caitlin CarvallBA Hons Dance (Contemporary)

Miss Caitlin is one of our own ex-pupils and many of you may remember her. She danced at LLDS since 2008 and then went to the prestigious London Studio Centre to study dance. It’s an absolute pleasure to welcome her back to the school as a teacher. Caitlin will be part of our Saturday team taking classes at Studio 208 teaching Contemporary and Lyrical working with the Classic Stars.
Caitlin has recently graduated from London Studio Centre with a First Class degree in Theatre dance specialising in Contemporary and was also awarded the Peter Brinson Contemporary Award. During my time at LSC she was very fortunate to work with some fantastic contemporary choreographers including Luke Brown, Laura Weston and Alleyne Dance who have helped shape her own style of blended techniques.

‘I am really looking forward to being back at LLDS, this time as a teacher, working with the amazing team and teaching core foundations of contemporary techniques in a positive and expressive environment. I can’t wait to see all the fabulous things we achieve together’!

Miss Emily SmithDDE Ballet, Modern and Tap and Acrobatic Arts

Miss Emily trained professionally at Laine Theatre Arts and graduated in 2014 with a professional diploma in musical theatre. Whilst at college Emily worked at the Laine semi student school and completed her DDI qualifications with the ISTD. For the last 9 years Emily has travelled the world as a Dance Captain performing on cruise ships with Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruise Lines. Emily also recently completed a BA Hons in Musical Theatre at Middlesex University (2022).

Emily’s theatre credits include: ‘Hunyak’ in Chicago, (RCCL), Stephen Schwartz ‘Magic To Do’ and ‘Born to Dance’ (PCL), ‘Broadway to the Bay’ with west end choreographer Andrew Wright. ‘CBBC Ten Pieces Prom’ at the Albert Hall. UK Olympics Wimbledon Tennis opening (AMCK) and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ (Jordan Productions)

Emily is absolutely delighted to be joining LLDS as the Acro and ISTD teacher

Mrs Rebecca Maskell GGSMBallet Pianist and Pre-school Specialist

Mrs Maskell is our wonderful pianist who accompanies all the Pre-school Ballet Classes. Trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, she is now Monkey Music’s Company Training Manager. She was recently nominated for the Most Outstanding Class Leader on the Whatson4littlesones awards.
Mrs Maskell explores music and song with the young children and develops their musicality through play and imagination.