Who is Minx?

I am the founding director of the Mbassy Dance. We are an adult street Latin dance school and events management venue here in The District Docklands entertainment precinct.

I've been teaching, choreographing, coaching, performing and judging internationally for 15 years now and have worked in Europe, North America, Asia and all over Australia. I’ve trained national champions from zero dance ability through to winning their own national titles.

I've also made it to the top 70 in ‘So You Think You Can Dance?’ and was featured in the show’s top 100 Australian dancers. My competition dance students have accused over 20 national titles to date.

One thing that was important for me was doing something for my career that I was passionate about. I have a background in biomedical science and an honours degree in immunology.

So, I could have very easily had that safe, secure kind of career choice, and I do love learning and researching. I'm very curious so I do enjoy that, but my passion lies in dance and performance and creativity. I create my own costumes, design the makeup, everything in that; so, the first part was choosing something that I was passionate about, and then the second part is, I call it nurturing my spark.

I love to see my students succeed and to see them enjoying what they're doing. Success obviously means different things for different people in terms of dance. It might be just being able to have fun at a salsa party and not feel self-conscious, that might be successful for one student, whereas another one might be very serious about competing or performing. So, it's different for everyone and that obviously brings me joy. But I also need to do things for myself to make sure that my creativity stays alive.

So, whether that's going travelling to train myself or maybe learning a new dance style that I haven't experienced before, just finding something different and inspiring.

We opened our first studio, our first proper home in Docklands, in Victoria Harbour, which launched in October last year at the end of Collins Street as part of the Renew Docklands Shopfront Activation program.

Renew Docklands was amazing. They were and are super supportive, even though we're technically alumni and not part of the programme anymore. (read more about Renew Docklands here)

Especially after COVID we were, struggling to come back financially, so having the opportunity to relaunch through Renew meant being able to create a space that felt more special for us; I wanted something special so that people would feel like dance is alive again, especially after all that we've been through.

From talking to dancers in the community that I've been trying to encourage to visit our new location, they have this idea that Docklands is so far away. Docklands is not as far as people seem to think it is, especially with the accessibility via public transport (in the free tram zone).

It's so easy.

Maybe something like ‘Harborside City-side’. Again, that proximity and it's got everything. The best of both worlds.

I think one of the things I'm enjoying, because I've been promoting the studio and dancing around random community events and things, is people coming up and being, “You're the dance lady”

It's kinda cute, like, “yes, I am.”

It happens very randomly, honestly. I'll be like I don't know why you know me. Can you tell me, please? Like, is it from online? Is it from real life? Have I taught you dance? Have I taught you makeup?

It's very sweet.

I think it would be cool if we could change that perception into that Docklands is just like the CBD as far as accessibility, as far as entertainment nightlife, as far as its capacity for actually having something for everyone.