Rachel graduated in 1991 from The Hammond School of Dance in Chester after completing 3 years of professional dance training including ballet, modern, jazz, tap acting and singing. In her final year, she gained teaching qualifications with the Royal Academy of Dance and the Imperial Institute of Dance.

In 1992 Rachel moved to San Diego California, where she studied ballet pedagogy at Stage 7 School of Dance and completed an internship in aesthetic education with master dance teacher Kathryn Irey as part of the Leonard Bernstein Gifted Children project. She has worked as a freelance dance artist for over 30 years in a wide variety of settings in the UK, USA and Asia. In 2012 (until 2019) she moved to Cambodia with her family where she worked with English Ballet Theatre Cambodia as a teacher and educator. Her work included co-leading community dance projects with Looked After Children and running a teacher training program for early years dance classes with local dancers. Rachel is passionate about creativity and enabling students to develop as thinking, moving, human beings, able to integrate concepts discovered in the dance class into everyday life and learning. She also loves working with children and adults to see their ideas, thoughts and emotions expressed and shared with others through movement and performance.

In 2000 Rachel graduated from the University of Surrey with an MA in dance studies. In her work with createmovedance she continues to follow her own lines of enquiry to enrich her work. As part of this, the curriculum created for createmovedance classes is always evolving in response to the needs, abilities and interests of the students.

Rachel also has extensive experience working with community groups and in schools. From 2006 – 2011 she worked as dance artist with 5x5x5=Creativity. Her role was to work alongside classroom teachers, researching the impact of creativity in education and looking for ways to support children in their learning and development using the creative languages, particularly movement. Rachel is passionate about using movement and the arts to support family relationships and build community.