Sibylle (1968, the Netherlands) started folk dancing at the age of 7 and has been teaching since she was 16. She took particular interest in many kinds of dance forms such as: classical ballet, modern dance, jazz dance, renaissance dance, tap dance, belly dance, but her heart lies with international folk dance. In 1990 she completed a two-year folk dance teacher training program.
After studying French and Dutch language at the University of Education in Utrecht (1992), she lived in Paris for a while where she discovered the inspiring music and unfamiliar dances of Breton culture, which drove her to spend many summers in Brittany taking dance classes and visiting festivals to study Breton dance and culture. Breton dance thus became her first dance teaching specialization.
.jpg "Picture by Richard van de Kooij")
In addition to the annual courses in Brittany, Sibylle also made many trips to the Balkans (Bulgaria, Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia, Albania) to learn the dances of these countries in the place of origin, to get a feeling about the culture and the languages and to meet the inhabitants. Because that is what, according to her, makes folk dancing so beautiful: the background stories of the dances in their traditional settings, finding meaningful explanations of dance movements in cultural practices, the large variety in musical rhythms and sounds, and contact with the people who carry these dances in their tradition. And above all the social relevance of dancing together.
Since 2010 she regularly goes to Albania to learn more about Albanian dance, culture, their remarkable history, language, the beautiful country and the people. For her a typical feature and the beauty of Albanian dance is that all body parts dance together: feet, legs, hands, arms, head and body. Therefore, she is currently developing her second specialization: Albanian dance.
Sibylle very regularly teaches international folk dance all over the Netherlands, and she also teaches more and more abroad, like in England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and French-Canada.
Apart from teaching folk dance, Sibylle also contributed, for Syncoop company from the Netherlands, to the production of several CDs with international folk dance programs (the MIX series). In 2009 she released her own CD "Et voilà!". A CD with dances she arranged herself and from colleagues. One dance that may be familiar is "De valse zeeman", a Dutch dance created by Sibylle.
Furthermore, she contributed in various roles to the Doe Dans-festival series in the Netherlands, and, from 2006 onwards, she is active as organizer of camps, workshops and festivals such as the Driekoningencursus (Three Kings/Epiphany Course), the Zomerfestival (Summer Festival) with teachers from the Netherlands and abroad (website: www.dansevent.nl) foto presentatie Doe Dans
Sibylle is a compassionate singer too, taking singing classes from the age of 26 in modern light classical music, as well as participating in a Dutch close harmony choir. Since 2018 she sings in Palitra (painters palette in Bulgarian) a Balkan Band that is active in small concerts and international dance parties.