Most people in our core team are volunteers. Some are hired on a project-base.
Aurélia Sellier
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FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT
Aurélia is Franco-Swiss and currently lives in Paris. Besides leading WDCD, she works as a freelance speaker, public speaking coach and trainer.
Initially from a Literature and Business academic background, a career break gave her the opportunity to make a dream come true: bring an artistic and philanthropic project to life. Passionate about dance, the topic came to her very naturally.
“What Dance Can Do was born from the belief that dance can change lives. And that more people should know about it. Dance is empowering in so many ways, it can play an active role in driving positive change at individual, community and society levels. Dance programs are not a cost; they are an investment in the future of humanity.”
Marie Faucon
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TREASURER
Seasoned professional in the areas of brand management, strategic marketing and business development, Marie is based in Paris.
Being fascinated by visual arts, including photography and opera, Marie has discovered ballet dancing with Aurélia as an introduction to What Dance Can Do. Realising how much she was herself moved by the poetry and energy of dancers made her grasp the power of dance. She therefore found herself aligned with the What Dance Can Do goal to promote dance as a change-maker for young people.
Marie is supporting the project from Paris where she aims to create events and develop the What Dance Can Do network.
Jean-Baptiste Durand
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VICE PRESIDENT
Jean-Baptiste is a French journalist, digital consultant and social media strategist. Former political journalist for a national radio, he now works for cultural institutions (such as Fondation Louis Vuitton), fashion brands (such as Saint Laurent) or non-profits (such as Fraternité Générale) to help them find their way inside the thrilling and infinite digital world.
Jean-Baptiste is deeply convinced that social media and the Internet should not only be considered merely as communication tools but as real media, digital spaces, or even digital stage (as it is for the “3e scène” of the Opera National de Paris with which he has been collaborating for the last couple of years). Jean-Baptiste is a huge fan of ballet & dance in general (also being an amateur ballet dancer) and believes in the power of dance, movement and music to change lives.
Dorothée Blacher
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PROJECT LEAD FRANCE
Immersed in the world of classical dance from a very young age, Dorothée Blacher has built her professional path around this art. After a career as a professional dancer in various ballet companies such as the Paris Opera and the English National Ballet, she decided to discover a new aspect of dance joining the brand Repetto. For more than 15 years, she built up marketing and commercial skills until she headed the dance department of Repetto. Aware of the emotional impact of art, Dorothée wishes to share dance-connected values through a vision that she has shaped throughout her career. To invest in the association « What Dance Can Do » is for her an obvious way to give a new meaning to her commitment with the ambition of transmitting and revealing the artistic, cultural, and educational dimension of dance to the younger generations.
Akram Khan
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ADVISORY BOARD
Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists today. In just over fifteen years, he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as DESH, iTMOi, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.
An instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan has been a magnet to world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines. His previous collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.
Khan’s work is recognised as being profoundly moving, in which his intelligently crafted storytelling is effortlessly intimate and epic. Described by the Financial Times as an artist “who speaks tremendously of tremendous things”, a recent highlight of his career was the creation of a section of the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony that was received with unanimous acclaim.
Khan has been the recipient of numerous awards throughout his career including the Laurence Olivier Award, the Bessie Award (New York Dance and Performance Award), the prestigious ISPA (International Society for the Performing Arts) Distinguished Artist Award, the Fred and Adele Astaire Award, the Herald Archangel Award at the Edinburgh International Festival, the South Bank Sky Arts Award and six Critics’ Circle National Dance Awards. Khan was awarded an MBE for services to dance in 2005. He is also an Honorary Graduate of Roehampton and De Montfort Universities, as well as University of London, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity Laban.
Khan is an Associate Artist of Sadler’s Wells, London and Curve Leicester.
Photo: JL Fernandez
Kevin O’Hare
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ADVISORY BOARD
Kevin is the Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet. He was born in Yorkshire and trained at The Royal Ballet School and, through an exchange programme, with Royal Danish Ballet. He began his performing career with The Royal Ballet’s sister company Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, and stayed with that company as a Principal during its transformation into Birmingham Royal Ballet. During this time, Kevin performed extensively in the UK and internationally, including as a guest artist with many leading companies. His repertory included all the leading classical roles, such as Prince Siegfried (Swan Lake), Prince Florimund (The Sleeping Beauty), Albrecht (Giselle) and Romeo (in BRB’s first performance of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet). O’Hare worked with many leading figures in the ballet world, including Ninette de Valois, Peter Wright, Frederick Ashton, MacMillan and David Bintley, and created several roles, including Amynta (Bintley’s Sylvia). He also produced many galas and choreographic evenings.
O’Hare retired from the stage in 2000, entering into a traineeship in company management with the Royal Shakespeare Company. This led to the post of Company Director with BRB in 2001, and in 2004 he joined The Royal Ballet as Company Manager. He was made Administrative Director in 2009 before being appointed to his current role. In 2013, he was appointed to the board of Dance UK.
Nolwenn Guibert
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CHIEF SAFEGUARDING OFFICER
Nolwenn Guibert is an international lawyer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Paris X Nanterre, an LLM from Washington College of Law, and a DESS from the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas. She started her career as Human Rights Officer with the OSCE in post-conflict Bosnia-Herzegovina. She then served as a legal adviser to international judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for 12 years and for shorter periods at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the International Criminal Court, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. More recently, her legal practice shifted to international civil service litigation, conduct, and ethics, working as a disciplinary Officer for the United Nations Department of Field Support in New York and currently as Senior Legal Officer in Geneva. Her ballet training shaped the lawyer she has become and her passion for ballet and human rights has drawn her to further her research on the interactions between the two. She is the co-editor of a book on the topic (Art and Human Rights: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Issues) which publication with Edward Elgar Publishing is forthcoming in May 2023.
Oriane Parasie-Dubocq
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TEAM FRANCE
Oriane is a French business lawyer, located in Luxembourg. After various experiences in law firms and corporate entities in Paris and Singapore, she has launched in Singapore a start-up specialised in online corporate services.
A culture lover, and a long-time friend of Aurelia, she is delighted to join ”What Dance Can Do”, hoping to be of any help for this beautiful and generous adventure.
As Chief Compliance Officer, Oriane will ensure that the main activities of the association are compliant with laws and regulations and monitor and mitigate any compliance risks.
Camille di Fiore
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PROJECT LEAD BELGIUM
Camille Di Fiore dedicates her life to dance and its transmission, cultivating strong teaching skills as a certified Dance Teacher by the French government and a profound understanding of the intrinsic human values associated with this art.
In 2022, she joined WDCD and played an essential role in establishing the Belgian branch. Returning to her hometown followed a period of training with eminent masters of the French School of Dance, such as Atilio Labis, Christiane Vlassi, Evelyne Dessuter, and international workshops with prestigious institutions like the Royal Ballet of London, the San Francisco Ballet, and the Netherlands Dance Theater company in Amsterdam. This training led to her professional dancer diploma from the Stanlowa Institute in Paris. Her journey allows her to balance a career as both a teacher and a dancer, working with renowned companies such as the Saint Petersburg Ballet during their tours in Belgium, LAAC at the Théâtre des Champs, Cie KDP Paris, and currently as a freelance artist.
Furthermore, Camille actively engages with the Association for Artistic Exchanges between France and China (AEAFC), where she is regularly invited throughout China to promote the French School of Dance through masterclasses and as a judge for the “Prix d’Europe.”
Today, she holds the position of Head of Business Development at WDCD in Belgium while also artistically contributing to the well-being of the children beneficiaries.
Rodolphe Fouillot
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TEAM FRANCE
Rodolphe Fouillot studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris and California Institute of the Arts of Los Angeles. He danced for 23 years in national and international companies. He also is a certified dance teacher.
Along the years, he has led dance projects aimed at a vast range of people, among others elderly people, people in prison serving long sentences, living with disabilities or terminally ill.
Among other pieces, he choreographed the danced parts of the opera “Le petit poisson d’or” from Youli Galperine and those of “Hansel et Gretel” and of Strauss’ “Chauve-Souris” for the Paris Opera. He also has worked as rehearsal master.
Since September 2016, he choreographs for the Paris Opera Academy. Since 2019, he is in charge of an artistic project involving people living with disabilities and teaches at the CRD of Gennevilliers.
A documentary film, “De rage et de danse” (2019), documents on his recent work.
OTHER PRECIOUS CONTRIBUTORS HAVE INCLUDED
Athéna Batihe-Guestin
Céline Burlot
Marie Beloeuvre
Magali-Marie Bonald
Maura Madeddu
Olivia Lecomte
Rasmus Meldgaard
Valentina Erra
Yeocheva Gabbay
Christine Denamur
Mourad Bouayad
Laura Arend
Isabella Kreimer
Sally Cowdin
Maria-Elena Daynes
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The What Dance Can Do Project
New Zealand
The NZ Team shares WDCD’s exciting vision in bringing change through dance and is driving initiatives in New Zealand since 2020.
Raina NG
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PRESIDENT WDCD TRUST AND PROJECT LEAD NZ
Raina is Malaysian born but grew up in Dunedin, New Zealand. After graduating, she had a short stint in corporate law before working as a journalist in Kuala Lumpur. After 7 years, she relocated to Wellington and resumed legal practice. Raina is an advocate for the important role that arts and literature plays in society. Ballet classes were instrumental for Raina as a young adult helping her through difficult times and giving her the tools she needed to face challenges, learn confidence and push forward. Having experienced what dance has done for her, Raina truly believes in the ability of dance and dance training to change lives and hopes to use dance as a tool to instil hope and improve lives.
Alina Kulikova
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VOLUNTEER DANCE COACH
Russian born Alina was a soloist with the Imperial Russian Ballet company. Alina was recruited for ballet training at the age of 10 and moved to Moscow to dance professionally in the scene after completing her classical Vaganova training. Alina also has a degree in media and communications. In 2015, Alina was touring with the company on a Swan Lake tour in Australia and New Zealand, when she met her partner. Alina relocated to Wellington shortly after that and is now an accredited Royal Academy of Dance teacher. Alina truly loves dance and has seen how it cultivates a culture of strength and character. She enjoys sharing her passion for dance and loves seeing her students’ responses to dance training. Nothing excites her more than to see her students exploring the world through the freedoms and disciplines of art.
Paula B.A. Westerby
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PROJECT CONSULTANT
Paula was born in Brazil and came to New Zealand as a student in 2007, staying ever since. Paula has a background in business administration and education management having worked for years with an organisation focused on offering and supporting school-leavers and second-chance learners seek training and qualifications. Paula is a lover of culture and the arts and believes that the arts can bring people together, heal and bridge gaps. Dance, in Paula’s view, both the experiencing and learning of dance, teaches values and resilience through new perspectives. It also gives kids a way of expressing themselves. Paula is excited to see how the initiative can build and change lives of New Zealand children.
