EastEnders star Luisa Bradshaw-White has a very different job after quitting her role as Tina Carter on the BBC soap – and she’s now an ecstatic dance DJ.
Luisa, who has starred in shows like Holby City and Bad Girls before landing the role as serial killer Gray’s first victim, admits she hasn’t closed the door on acting completely.
But she is concentrating on her newest venture, which sees participants don headsets while out in the woods and dance like nobody’s watching.
Dancers also ingest sacred cacao to “open their hearts” before letting loose with their bodies.
Her dance company Om Love UK has even collaborated with Forestry England to help dancers get out barefoot into the woods and connect with nature.
Luisa sat down exclusively with Daily Star Online to chat about her new career – but made it clear she hasn’t turned her back on acting for good.
(Image: Instagram)
She explained: “I was misquoted – I never ever said that I had quit acting.
“I am concentrating on this at the moment. I’d never shut the door on acting, there’s room for everything. I’m putting my time into setting all this up at the moment because it needs my time.
“It’s something we’re putting out there, and not many people know about it.”
The actress went on: “I think a lot of actors have other jobs as well because you’re not working 24/7.”
And now Luisa wants to bring ecstatic dance to the masses, appearing at Out and Wild – the UK’s first wellness festival for queer, questioning and curious women, along with non-binary people – later this year.
(Image: officiallulubw/Instagram)
She began training as a breath worker while still starring in Holby City, and took up ecstatic dance as a hobby at first as it made her feel “free”.
Luisa explained of the practice: “We start with a cacao ceremony – we drink sacred cacao, which is raw chocolate grown by shamans in Peru.
“We all sit round in a circle and we make an intention before the dance of anything we might want to let go of, anything we might want to draw in. We have a facilitator who takes you through the beginning of the dance to help you get out of your head and into your body – to ground your energy.”
Luisa then acts as a DJ, “playing really, really chilled music” while people are left to dance by themselves.
She added: “When we’re outside, we dance with headsets so it’s quite an immersive experience. The beat starts to pick up and people start to dance, until at the peak of it everybody is just throwing themselves around feeling very euphoric.
(Image: BBC)
“The cacao really helps to open your heart and nobody cares any more. Everybody comes in feeling quite inhibited the first time – but by halfway through it, they just don’t care and they’re dancing wildly and there are no steps.”
The star concluded: “By the end, we’ve all forgotten how to dance because we just let our bodies move how they want to move.
“Rhythm is gone, dance moves are gone and coolness is gone. The wilder the ecstatic dancer the cooler you are really, it gives a whole new meaning to coolness.”
For Luisa, ecstatic dance is an opportunity to really let go without the alcohol-fuelled clubbing lifestyle, while still getting to move her body to the beat.
(Image: Instagram)
She said: “I’m not really that interested in drinking and I miss dancing. I don’t go clubbing anymore. We get too old or can’t cope with the comedown or we have kids and need to be responsible.”
Luisa will be appearing at Out & Wild festival later this summer.
The event, which runs from 10-13th of June 2022 in Lawrenny, Pembrokeshire, features dozens of activities across three days, covering music, comedy, wellness, sport, wild swimming, spoken word, poetry and interactive workshops.
The event has been designed to be an inclusive, safe and supportive space to explore new activities and embrace nature.
Tickets are available to purchase from the Out and Wild website.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
