The Feminine Divine is made up of a team of passionate and skilled teachers and performers! Let them introduce themselves...
Tenille Joy Lindeque
Founder, Principal Teacher, and Performer
Founder, Principal Teacher, and Performer
I started dancing as a little girl, first ballet and then modern dance. As a teenager, looking forward to my daily dance classes got me through the long tedious days at school in Knysna. At the age of 16, I started teaching aerobics classes for my Godmother, Briony, and when I finished school I moved to Cape Town and completed my training as an aerobics instructor and personal trainer through the ETA at the Sports Science Institute in Newlands.
In 2000 I met my first belly dance teacher, Dawn Kennedy. I attended classes with Dawn on and off for a year and became increasingly passionate about the beautiful, ancient dance form. Having spent my teen years living on apples in the hopes of getting thinner, I was delighted to find a dance form that embraced the natural curves of a woman's body.
I later danced with Natasha Van Der Merwe, of The Hip Circle studio, and was impressed by her dynamic stage presence and graceful movements. Natasha's style suited me and I began teaching a creative dance class at Dakini health and wellness studio. This class, along with my regular aerobics classes, gradually progressed from grapevines and V steps to shimmies and undulations.
In 2003 Dakini closed and I decided to open my own studio ... teaching stretch and tone classes ... but it was not to be. Destiny prevailed and soon my students were requesting belly dance lessons. And so The Feminine Divine was born! So from 3 die hard Dakini students the studio has now grown to over 300 members... all Goddesses who are a part of the Feminine Divine family!
Catch Tenille performing at any of these venues where she is one of the resident dancers: Anatoli in Greenpoint - Saturdays. The Brass Bell - Mondays. The Sugar Hut - Saturdays.
Qualifications for Teaching
- 2000 - Trained as an exercise teacher with ETA.
- 2005 - Traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to attend the Ahlan wa Sahlan Festival where I attended workshops with world renowned teachers including Dina, Tamalyn Dallal, Farida Fahmy and Mahmoud Reda.
- 2005 - Resident Dancer at Anatoli Turkish Restaurant.
- 2007 - Traveled to Cairo, Egypt, to attend the Nile Group teachers training course with Farida Fahmy and Mahmoud Reda ... what an amazing experience!
- 2008 - Completed Hadia's International Belly Dance Teachers training course level 1 and 2 in Cape Town!
- 2008 to present - Resident Dancer at Anatoli Turkish Restaurant
- Member of the Belly Dancing Assosiation of South Africa since 2006
Tiffany Lindeque - Teacher and Performer
Tiffany Kim Lindeque is Tenille's little sister. She has danced since she learned to walk and has studied ballet, tap, modern and Latin dance. She began teaching Latin dance in Knysna for her dance teacher, Celeste in 2008 and moved to Cape Town at the beginning of 2010 to join her sister on the Feminine Divine team. Spending a grueling number of hours a day in the studio with Tenille, shimmying, undulating and giggling up a storm, Tiffany soon began receiving compliments about her dancing that Tenille could either choose to acknowledge with pride, or begin to feel jealous of! Fortunately she chose the former! :-) Apart from one on one private training with Tenille, Tiffany participated in 2 intense training workshops in 2010, namely with Belly Dance Superstar, Ansuya, and with Samantha Emanuel.
While Tiffany loves to samba, salsa and cha cha to the fiery grooves of Latin america, she has found her true calling as a bellydancer and adds a special fiery energy to the studio.
