Turning your hobby into a full-time business can be a delicate dance, but it's something Gemma Cooper is confident she can choreograph. The 28-year-old from Dunmore East in Waterford is the founder and creative director of Celtic Soul, the United Arab Emirates' only Irish dancing troupe.

Gemma moved to Dubai in August 2011 to work as a primary school teacher. “I specialised in geography while I was at St Pat’s College in Dublin, so I think that spurred me on to look for jobs outside Ireland.

"I'd never lived abroad before, but I'd toured around the world with the show Rhythm of the Dance for three years. We travelled all over Europe, North and Central America, as well as Asia. We also did a show in Ramallah in Palestine in 2007. We flew to Tel Aviv and got a bus to the venue. It was my first taste of the Middle East and I found it very interesting."

Part of Gemma’s job description as a senior infants teacher was to come up with an extra curriculum activity for her pupils.

She chose Irish dancing, relishing the chance to lace up her ghillies once again.

“I’ve probably taught around 60 or 70 children over the past couple of years. The class is full of all nationalities and they really love it.”

Teaching the students led to requests from adults also wanting to learn, so Gemma obliged by setting up a Facebook page and advertising classes.

“One day last year, I got a call from someone who asked if we performed at events. I was caught on the hop, so I said we did.

“The event was a gala dinner at a racecourse in Dubai. I had to quickly pull a troupe together and come up with a show, but it paid off. We got booked for more and more events because it was March and close to St Patrick’s Day.”

It was at this point that Celtic Soul bounded into the spotlight of Gemma’s life.

She now hopes to transition gracefully from teaching to dancing full-time in the next 18 months.

"I am the creative director of the troupe and feel I know what works, having performed in other professional shows for years. We now have 15 dancers, I recruited mainly through word of mouth here in Dubai. We've performed at events such as the GAA World Games in Abu Dhabi and the Bahrain Irish Society's Paddy's Day Ball, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. A girl from Fermanagh also booked us to dance at her wedding which was held on Dubai's Palm Jumeirah Island."

Wider audience

Despite having only attracted Irish clients so far, Gemma feels strongly that she can widen her dancing circles.

"All of the big shows like Riverdance and Lord of the Dance are still touring the world after 20 years. They only spend around a month in Ireland at a time, so more than just Irish people seem to respond to it.

“The biggest hurdle will be to tell people it’s not just for Irish people. At some of my classes, people say ‘but I’m not Irish’ and I tell them ‘You don’t have to be Irish to enjoy Irish dancing’.

“I definitely think our show has the potential to be a very lucrative business. The market out here for events is huge. Everything in Dubai is bigger and everyone wants their event to be better. I was on one company’s website recently and it offered around 16 different types of dance performances alone. They had groups offering everything from belly dancing to Bollywood performers, as well as ballroom and Hip Hop crews, but didn’t have any professional Irish dancers. If we do it right it could be very successful.”

Gemma is already looking to opportunities besides Dubai.

“We are looking to expand within the Middle Eastern region and then into Asia, as I think there’s a real market for a show like ours in places like Hong Kong and Singapore. My plan is to use the next year as a stepping stone to lift the company off the ground. There are so many opportunities here for us and I feel I’ve managed to spot a gap in the market.

“Irish dancing is something I have been doing for years, so it doesn’t feel like work for me. It feels like I’ve just taken up my hobby again, but the difference is this time I’m the one doing the organising.”