UAE dancer and UK national Suzanne Julia Clandon is changing the landscape for dance here in the UAE, and has been awarded a Fulbright Award for her commitment towards this, and will now continue her studies at The New School in New York City for a period of 2-3 years from September 2015.
Clandon who was a teacher of Physical Education at Deira International School, Dubai Festival City was recently notified that she was one of twenty honored recipients who has been selected to receive a prestigious post-graduate award from the US-UK Fulbright Commission in any discipline after she was shortlisted for interview from a pool of 60,000 British applicants. Suzanne is the only recipient who currently resides outside of the UK to gain this award for the 2015-16 cycle.
She gained her award after impressing a panel of representatives from the US-UK Fulbright Commission about her journey as a dance artist and educator in UAE over the past 7 years and how she is contributing to the UAE’s developing arts and cultural scene. Suzanne co-founded Dubai Desert Dance, which provides a platform for dance education and performances amongst UAE’s schools. She is a passionate tap dancer and in December 2014 was the first person to represent an Arab Country at the IDO World Tap Dance Championships in Germany. In addition to this she recently brought world-class all-female tap dance group Chloe Arnold’s Syncopated Ladies to Dubai to perform alongside them for an audience of 600 people. Chloe Arnold’s Syncopated Ladies appeared on season 11 of So You Think You Can Dance (USA) as crew battle winners.
She claims that the key to her success is tap dance and travel. Travel continues to allow her to meet and be inspired by a variety of well-educated, open and motivated minds. Suzanne sees the next phase of her journey as a very unique opportunity to not only be educated herself, but to also share aspects of her experience as a western woman residing in, and developing arts education in a predominantly Arab society, with fellow Brits and Americans, who generally display much curiosity towards the culture of the United Arab Emirates.
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