Leena Patel

The founder of BollyFemme, a movement to empower women through dance. Leena’s ethos has been a key driving force behind the success of BollyFemme. Promoting female empowerment, providing a safe supportive environment for students to learn, confidence building and encouraging self-love are all qualities at the heart of company.

Born in Birmingham, Leena has a background training in Bharatanatyam and Kathak, under guru’s smt Chitraleka Bolar and Sonia Sabri respectively. Her professional career in dance started at age 14 following her debut solo. She then spent the rest of her teenage years performing at renowned venues across the country including Birmingham Symphony Hall, CBSO, NEC, The Lowry and London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Leena enrolled into medical school at Barts and the London but continued to pursue her career in dance, balancing the two for over a decade. She started to professionally choreograph for dance and theatre companies and performed in various projects at popular venues over the country; including ‘Dhamaka’ at the Royal Albert Hall; ‘Bollywood Showstoppers’ and ‘Bollywood Showdown’ at the O2 Arena over 3 consecutive years. She also choreographed for ‘Bring on the Bollywood - Musical’ which toured the UK and multiple projects abroad. Her work has reached out to the Bollywood industry in India and she has choreographed and performed with top celebrities; Shahid Kapoor, Sonakshi Sinha, Jacqueline Fernandez, Malaika Arora, Bipasha Basu and more recently Amy Jackson for a British film.

Leena’s mainstream work has featured on Channel 4’s ‘Stand up to Cancer’, and BBC’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. She co-choreographed a pilot commercial for ‘Muller Yoghurt’, which was released nationally in Germany and worked on a commercial with Gary Lineker for ‘Walker’s Crisp’. Leena was rewarded with much praise for her Bollywood choreography for WILL.I.AM at the ‘BBC Music Awards’. She also co-choreographed for the prestigious ‘Nobel Peace Prize Concert’, which took place in Oslo, Norway in 2014. 

Leena is currently working as a GP and runs Bollyfemme classes weekly, alongside professional rehearsals for BollyWorld Entertainment. She finds satisfaction in her double life and feels that she has found a steady equilibrium between her two occupations. She is determined to show women and young girls that they really can achieve all their dreams with hard work and determination.