Growing up in Port Macquarie, she began dancing at the age of five and has loved it ever since. 

Bella worked as a dancer for a while, then trained as a nurse, and now she and three other health professionals have teamed up to compete in Prime 7’s show, Dance Boss.

The show began last night (Monday August 6) and Bella and her team will appear for the first time in tonight’s show, (Tuesday August 7).

Bella, who’s 22, is sworn to secrecy about which occupation will sweep the nation and took time out of her busy schedule to talk to the Port Macquarie News.

As a child, Bella and her twin brother, Alex loved to dance and at five, she learned tap, ballet and jazz, and was hooked.  

“I stuck with those three and did contemporary and pop when I got older. I moved to Port Macquarie Performing Arts, and I got to do more musical theatre which is my thing,” recalled Bella, who went to St Peter’s Primary, St Paul’s High School and McKillop College.

Her favourite musical is Anything Goes and she loved the fact that it’s so old-fashioned and has learned all the choreography, having watched it a thousand times.  She enjoyed being a member of the Players Theatre in Port Macquarie.

Bella’s goal was to be a professional dancer.  When she finished her HSC, she moved to Sydney to the Village Performing Arts Centre for a year and studied dancing, singing and acting full-time.

“It was amazing.  Being from the country, I didn’t have exposure to the professional world of arts. In Sydney, I was being taught by professionals every day, and soaking up all their knowledge and expertise,” said Bella.

She got a contract to be a dancer in India and did Bollywood movies and performed at events like birthday parties for a while, then came back to Australia and got a job as a casual performer with the legendary Wiggles.

“I was either Dorothy the Dinosaur, Fairy Clare or a Wiggly dancer.  It was so surreal, because Dorothy was my favourite character when I was a child,” she smiled.

Things started to slow down and Bella says she got impatient.

“I had to pay the bills.  I always had an interest in healthcare and medicine and I started working in a hospital and then I began to study nursing,” she said.

She got her diploma and became an enrolled nurse last year.  Bella is now at university in Wollongong because she wants to become a registered nurse and work in the airforce.

She heard about Dance Boss through her dance teachers, so she applied and was teamed up with Victor, a doctor, Caitlin an occupational therapy student and Bilal, a registered nurse.

They began rehearsing in a car park, because all the studios were booked, and watched themselves in shop windows.

“We were there for hours, teaching each other routines and getting to know each other and it was great fun,” said Bella.

The team had a few weeks of intensive workshops with choreographers and got to do different types of dancing.

When the credits roll for Dance Boss tonight, Bella says her parents, Petr and Suzie Kanturek, who own the Bodilines Shop in Wauchope, will be watching, as will her twin, Alex.

“It’s amazing meeting the other teams from all over Australia.  We have all become really good friends,” said Bella.

“We are all from different walks of life and different professions and we all love to dance.”

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