Photo by David Fisher
Joëlle trained at the Centre International de Danse Rosella Hightower (Cannes) and at the London School of Contemporary Dance where she was invited by Nina Fonaroff to stay for a fourth year of study with focus on choreography. She runs Tac-au-Tac Dance Theatre in Oxford and launched Joëlle Pappas Projects in 2016 after having been selected for Dance UK’s Dance Teachers Mentoring scheme.
“Dance is about how one movement relates to the previous movement and to the next one. It takes shape through physical connections in and outside the body. Phrases are born and form original dance narratives; always different and always new. My dance, performance and choreographic research are forever intertwined to ensure the uniqueness of each moment.”
Joëlle enjoys collaborative projects. She was movement director for David Wood’s original production of the Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch (2000) and for singer Fanchon Daemers’s production of La Chanson du Mal Aimé by G. Apollinaire (2009). Supported by the Richard Dawkins Foundation, she worked in 2016 with scientist Yan Wong on Dancing the Tree of Life which was performed at the Cheltenham and Oxford Science festivals.
Her established practice of working with live music led to the choreography of two pieces funded by Arts Council England and the National Lottery in 2016: Duet2 to Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite for two dancers and two pianists and Tales without Words, a youth piece set to Satie's Trois Morceaux en Forme de Poire, played by pianists Diana Hinds and Elizabeth Kreager.
More recently, Joëlle movement directed pianist Késia Decoté in her promenade concert and installation Myths and Visions (2017) and choreographed her latest solo work Traits, commissioned by Dancin’Oxford and Pegasus Theatre in 2018, with live cello accompaniment by Bruno Guastalla.
For more than 20 years, Joëlle taught in further and higher education, in dance conservatoires and vocational institutions. She currently co-directs Oxford Youth Dance Company and she is the creative teacher for the Royal Ballet School Primary Steps programme in Swindon. Her community dance classes in Oxford under the umbrella of Tac-au-Tac have been running since 1994.
The Oxford Dance Forum Evolution programme supported Joëlle by providing financial support for an 8-week course in Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at the University of Oxford, for yoga training, for music tutorials and covered the costs of a producer for Nocturne, her latest project funded by Arts Council England and the National Lottery.