Eleanor Gaywood
In 2022, Eleanor took over as managing director of Taste of Cairo, the UK’s premier belly dance agency. As well as running her successful dance school, Shimmy School, she now manages over 30 professional dances across the country alongside performing as a professional belly dancer.
Eleanor started her belly dance journey at just 10 years old in an after-school club. She then went on to start teaching classes at age 16 and has been performing professionally since the age of 18.
She has gone on to play the lead in Sleeping Beauty the Belly Dance (2012), dance on ITV, BBC and Sky1, dance in music videos, work on board cruise ships for HAL and TUI, dance and corporate events, weddings, festivals and much more! Eleanor is very dedicated to her ongoing training having weekly private classes at Hype Dance in Ballet and travelling the globe to gain knowledge from the world’s best teachers. Eleanor has won the first Scholarship to train at Cairo Festival in Budapest with Mercedes Nieto, she also has been working in Cairo yearly for Randa Kamel at Raqs Of Course where she takes lessons from the leading teachers in Belly Dance as well as continuously taking fitness courses to better her teaching.
In previous years Eleanor has directed and choreographed 2 sell out productions in Sheffield. The first being the Aladdin the Belly Dance in 2019, then co-directed Beauty and the Beast in 2021. The motivation behind the productions being Eleanor’s desire to raise the profile of belly dance, to develop the community of dancers in Sheffield and to connect with different groups who would not otherwise have the chance to work together. She continues this work and passion by bringing Taste of Cairo Presents… to audiences across the country.