Inspiring recovery of Liverpool dancer who feared an accident had ended her career

After training to be a dancer from the age of six, Melennie-Jayne Deane thought her dream career had ended with an accident when she was a teenager.

Left with a severe leg injuries, Melennie-Jayne, from Anfield, came close to giving up on her ambition.

But after years of rehabilitation, she found the determination to join a new class in Liverpool and give it one last try.

Now two years on, Melennie-Jayne is launching her own heels classes and hoping to inspire others to not feel they have to be perfect to keep dancing.

She said:

“I’ve been on a big journey but my classes aren’t just for people who’ve been through what I have, they’re for anyone to come in and feel good about themselves.

“I think the reason I never did it earlier was because of how intimidating it looks but it’s OK not to look pristine and polished in a studio when there’s no job at the end of it and maybe we don’t see enough of that.

“If I’d been in a position where I saw someone who’d been through similar and come out the other side it would have been so much easier for me, so it’s basically if I can do it, you can too.”

For 24-year-old Melennie-Jayne, dancing was something fell in love with as a very young girl.

“I started training in Elliott-Clarke when I was about six, going to everything from modern to ballet and tap every Saturday. But then when I was 14 I was in a road traffic accident, I ended up with broken bones and my right ankle was crushed. 

“I had to have a few operations and wires put in it, and I remember asking the doctors if I’d ever dance again. I was told there was no point entertaining the idea then so it was a really scary time because I’d dedicated so much time to it growing up. 

“While the wires were in I had limited mobility with my ankle so even standing on my toes was completely impossible and I had back pain as well so I let go of the idea of dancing because it just felt so far away.”

With her friends going to dance college at 17, Melennie-Jayne didn’t want to miss out and joined them.

“But it was awful because I was so behind everyone else and it really knocked my confidence. I felt like I didn’t belong there anymore. I left a year early, I didn’t finish the course. I really just gave up because I thought it was too far gone.”

It wasn’t until she was 22 that she decided to give dancing one last shot and enrolled for heels classes with Paige Goulding at Liverpool Central Studios.

“I was in a mindset where it was now or never. I didn’t even have the right heels, I was in a class with a pair of night out heels on, but there were so many different levels in there.

“There were lots of dancers who were really good but just coming to terms with the fact that wasn’t my story anymore really helped me keep going. Instead of going into the class and thinking, I’ve got to be amazing or I’m giving up, I just let myself be what I was at that point.

“Paige still does open classes in Liverpool and runs her own dance company, where she selects people for shows and I ended up getting into that about four months ago which was huge.”

As her confidence grew, Melennie-Jayne started to look ahead to her next career step and finding a way to help other dancers.

“I’ve always been a commercial dancer and now I teach heels which is an up and coming genre of dance. It’s everywhere, but there’s a limited number of people in Liverpool doing it so I just wanted to open some space up.

“Heels does put a lot of pressure on my ankle, but that really fits my personality because I’ve always been so stubborn. I do need to take more breaks than other people and I do deal with a lot of pain but I train a lot outside the studio with mobility so that helps me.”

Melennie-Jayne is launching her first class at Arts Bar Hope Street on Friday April 11 and hopes to make the sessions weekly.

She says beginners aren’t expected to arrive with professional dance shoes so the classes are open to everyone.

“Even in the more established classes you still have people in non-professional shoes because it’s not really a necessity,” she adds. “Any heel over about 2.5inches will give the illusion, you just don’t want to be dancing in a night out chunky heel!”

To find out more details about Melennie-Jayne’s classes go to her Instagram

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