Michelle Heine has been teaching dance in Canberra for 30 years, starting with her own children "and then the neighbours and then friends of the neighbours and then cousins of neighbours" initially in her four-car garage in Calwell.
Since then, she has taught from the Calwell community centre, school halls, her Legs Dance Studio in Tuggeranong from 1997 to 2014 and, now, her six-studio Legs Performing Arts centre in Hume, strangely silent on Wednesday, when it should otherwise be filled with students, except for the coronavirus shutdown.
"I reckon I've probably taught 5000 to 7000 kids in Canberra," she said.
And many have stayed in the industry, her dancers going on to perform in the Moulin Rouge, the Lido de Paris, Tap Dogs, Universal Studio's Singapore, H2O Just Add Water, Dance Academy and Blue Water High and more.
Michelle was on Saturday night announced the winner of the Gold CAT (Canberra Area Theatre) award, for her "outstanding contribution to dance and theatre in the ACT region; her co-direction and choreography of Kinky Boots and for fostering the love of dance among people of all ages, including people with special needs, particularly through her local performing art studio, Legs Dance and for her enthusiastic support for community theatre".
"It was just so nice to be acknowledged for what you do. I do what I do because I love it and it's, really, more about the kids than me," she said.
The CAT Awards were announced via a pre-recorded video, the usual glitzy ceremony cancelled due to the coronvirus pandemic.
"It was a shame because I really would have liked to thank a lot of people, especially my parents, who has supported me [in dance] since I was three," she said.
Originally from Zambia, Michelle and her family followed her dance teacher to Zimbabwe, before, at just 17, she got a contract as a dancer at the Sun City resort in South Africa.
She eventually followed her parents, Marie and Phil Higgs, to Canberra, and she her husband Kevin had two children, Cariba and Kyle. Cariba, now 31, is an accomplished actress, most recently appearing in the Australian psychological thriller, The Secrets She Keeps, which debuted on WIN on Wednesday night.
Kyle, 34, was a performer on cruise ships for many years. Kevin works in the front office of the dance studio. "He's very good, very patient," Michelle said.
Legs caters for dancers from two years up to adults. The studio has also spent the last 15 years fostering a Down Syndrome/special needs dance group called the Legs Dream TEAM.
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Michelle and her team are now teaching online dance classes during the pandemic, shutdown as part of being classed as an indoor fitness centre. She felt for all her students, who were feeling anxious about the changes, especially those in year 12. "It's their last year for everything and they're missing everything," she said.
Legs Performing Arts also won the CAT award for Best Dance Performance by an individual or ensemble, for its performance of Machinery, a combination of acrobatics and contemporary.
