Janine McGrath
Janine McGrath was born in Wycheproof, Victoria, where the train runs right through the middle of the town. Although she only spent the first two years of her life there, she figures such an auspiciously named town gave her no option but to follow a theatrical path.
Originally wanting to be a ballerina, she says that her hopes were dashed when at age 13 she grew 7 inches in one year and resembled more baby giraffe than fairy! But performance was in her blood, and her flair and persistence led her through choreography and teaching, to running a dance society where she was President, choreographer, dance examiner, adjudicator, mentor, and teacher trainer.
A Primary School Teacher in the early 80’s, Janine found ways of integrating the performing arts into the 3R’s to develop the cultural connections she believed existed between all areas of education and learning.
The last 25 years saw her open and operate concurrently two large, successful dance schools. During this period Janine also seized the opportunity of working as a dance consultant on international touring productions of both theatre and arena shows, as well as teaching drama at a Victorian university.
“Communication can be achieved in a myriad of ways, but the arts generate immediate shortcuts. For me dancing, singing, and acting spring out of the same hat. Yes, there are specific skills assigned to each, but they are all forms of expression that require the artist to leave a little piece of themselves behind at every performance...yet the leaving also creates the arriving.”
Janine’s acting training includes; Howard Fine’s 6 Week Acting Essentials (current); NIDA Screen Acting Essentials; Acting workshops at PEM, Brave Studios and Howard Fine Acting Studio; This Is Not A Drill – General American Accent with Linda Nicholls-Gidley & Simon Masterton; Accent Olympics with Linda Nicholls-Gidley, French Language Studies and Drama in French at the Alliance Française.
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”