Marcia Pinheiro Percival one of the most successful Latin American women to grace our fair shores originally came to Australia solely to study English.

With over 13 years of dancing and television experience in Brazil and Japan, Marcia travelled to Australia to learn English. While studying, her nostalgia for Latin dance and music drew her to Sydney’s Latin dance scene, not only that Marcia also met her husband a great Aussie man Andrew Percival and all this combination of God’s will made her stay and be a important part of Australia.

The fire and energy that Marcia created on the dance floor brought her instant attention and she was constantly sought after as a performer and dance instructor. It wasn’t long until she became the most well known performer and instructor in the Latin and Brazilian Dance Clubs and Groups of Sydney. Marcia’s contagious energy in shows and as a teacher drew many people to Marcia’s rapidly growing dance empire. Within two months, Marcia’s name had become synonymous with Sydney’s Latin Dance community.

Since then Marcia and her LDA instructors have now taught over 10,000 students to dance Salsa, Samba, Rueda, Shines, Ladies Style and other forms of Latin Dance in Sydney alone. She is regarded as the most influential woman in the Sydney Latin scene. The only female to teach Samba, Salsa, Rueda, Ladies Style, Lambada, Merengue and Pagode.

A natural linguist, Marcia now speaks English albeit with a strong Brazilian accent!

Marcia’s owes much of her success to her creation of the ‘LDA teaching standard’ and God’s goodwill. Using her knowledge and experienced gained from over 2 decades of teaching and dancing Marcia together with Jaime Jesus developed a unique and simplified approach to teaching dance, which has become the LDA standard to teach Latin dance to the Latin dance community.

Marcia’s technique involves understanding the moves, rhythm, music and culture that is Latin American dance. Experience is not a pre-requisite in Marcia’s teaching philosophy. She has a particular way of teaching students and guiding them in becoming prominent successful dancers. Her unique dance style is admired by many!

A multi-talented individual, Marcia is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, promoter, businesswoman, marketing administrator, manager, talent scout, MC, and all-round best friend to many. An entrepreneur and owner of the biggest Latin Dance School in Sydney and the creator of many of the new initiatives introduced to expand Sydney’s Latin culture.

An innovative person by nature, Marcia has set the standard followed by many others in Sydney’s Latin Scene. A great example of her creativity was the development and introduction of a choreography program introduced late 2001, where over 120 of Marcia’s students vigorously trained in LDA’s choreography’s, which were eventually performed at the first annual Latin Dance Australia Ball in November 2001. What a success it was!

Her latest venture is to create the first Sydney World Salsa Congress 2004 in Australia, her drive, hard work and passion is just about to make this dream come through. Graced with an iron will and boundless determination her latest venture is sure to be a smashing success!


Started Swing Brazil (Biggest Brazilian Party in Australia till today!) - September 1999
Creator of perpetual Brazilian Carnival Party - first introduced February 2000
Organised and produced the first Brazilian festival in Australia - Brazil's 500th Anniversary Celebration - April 2000
Won the "Most Popular Latin Female 2000" at the Latin People's Choice Awards
Founder and Co-Director of Latin Dance Australia - January 2001
Appearances in various types of media such as TV, Movies, Radio, Newspapers and Magazines
February 2001 - organized Trip to Brazil for Carnival tour - Rio, Salvador, Porto Seguro and Sao Paulo
March 2001 - Salsa and Rueda skills enrichment in Miami and Los Angeles
April 2001 - Introduced Ladies Style for Salsa Advanced to Australia
July 2001 – Created produced and developed the first Annual Gala Ball in Australia - The spectacular Latin show done by the LDA students in November 01.
December 2001 - Opened the first centre of Latin dance in Sydney LDA Dance Studio in Petersham
2002 – LDA became official Australia’s representatives of Salsa for the World Salsa congresses
2003 – Co-producer of Salsa by the Sea for Randwick Council
2003 – LDA got the rights to produce the first ever Sydney World Salsa Congress.
2003 – One of Sydney Latin Fiesta Director and founder – an event specialist business
2003 – Created, produced and developed together with Jaime Jesus the first ever Salsa and Samba DVD/Video series in Australia
2003 – LDA became the entertainment managers of La Cita, the best and unique Sydney’s Latin venue.


Bachelor of Arts – Fashion Design/ Marketing (University of Sao Paulo)
Radio Announcer – AFTRS - Australian Film and Television School
Actor for video camera - ACTT - Actors College of Theatre & Television
Marketing and Business management –Path Finders – Christian City Church

Channel 9 - A 15 minutes special program called 'Party' about Swing Brazil.
Channel V – Foxtel- Latin People's Choice Awards- Most Popular Latin Female 2000.
ABC- Head Stars program featured a Salsa dancing class aired on Sunday 22nd July 6pm 2001.
Channel V – Ouch TV – Marcia & Jaime teach the 3 most popular Latin dance styles - Salsa, Samba and Lambada.
Channel 31 –EL VIVO - Interview with Marcia as the most influential female entrepreneur on the Latin Scene in Australia and featured LDA performance.
Channel 31 – El Vivo interview LDA crew on the Salsa by the Sea in Maroubra 2003
• Channel V – special Bacardi commercial television featuring Marcia, Jaime & Nathalie Kelley, top Salsa dancers in Australia January 2003.


Globo NEWS, Marcia had a special participation, showing how the Australians Samba. Aired in Brazil.
TV Cultura, this program showed how Marcia is developing the Brazilian culture in Australia. Aired in Brazil.
TV Bandeirantes, filmed Swing Brazil and titled the program 'The Biggest Brazilian Party in Australia' by Marcia Pinheiro. Aired in Brazil
ESPN, filmed Marcia's dance class plus interview. Aired in Brazil.



Sunday Herald - "Slaves of the Rhythm" and editorial piece about Marcia's summer open-air Latin dance classes.
Daily Telegraph - "Cuban Festival" and editorial piece about the Latin Scene into the Sydney Festival, featuring Marcia Pinheiro.
Hill News- Salsa under stars
Sunday Heralds- A spicy lesson in Latin- about the South American Festival in Bondi
Marcia in the cover of METRO Sydney Morning Heralds, article feautiring the biggest Latin Dance classes in Sydney.
Telegraphg -feutiring Marcia's group performance at Carribean Carnival in Fiesta at Darling Harbour.
Sydney Morning Heralds – Marcia was the cover of Metro (entertainment section) featuring Marcia and the biggest Latin dance schools and Latin entertainment in Sydney.


Estado de Sao Paulo - The biggest Brazilian Newspaper wrote an editorial about successful Brazilian people in Australia, featuring Marcia Pinheiro.



SBS- interview about the SWING BRAZIL warm-up party for the soccer game between Brazil & Australia
2SER- One hour special on Marcia talking about Brazil's 500 Anniversary
Bondi FM- Interview about Brazilian Party
2SER-Special participation in Frank Madri show to talk about the Brazilian rock and reggae
Bondi FM interview feautirung Marcia as a big promoter of Latin and Brazilian culture


Lantana - Marcia dances Salsa on the stage with the Band
Matrix2- Marcia was selected together with 49 between 300 dancers to be in a choreography section.


VIVA magazine - article featuring Marcia. Subject: Our wild thing
Sydney Night Out - Carnivale 2000
VIVA magazine - featuring the Gala Ball
Diaspora Magazine - featuring Marcia's dance class and technique.


Marcia is selected as MC and/or performer for many events in Australia. Most recently she MC’ed the Australia Day Latin Festival in Sydney’s West.


Marcia Pinheiro Percival Biography

Marcia Pinheiro was born in Fortaleza, one of the "hottest" places in Brazil. There, the music and dance environment, rich in culture, provided the foundation of Marcia's passion for dance. Marcia later moved to Sao Paulo with her family where she spent most of her teenage years.

From the age of 10, Marcia undertook extra-curricular singing and jazz dancing study. At 13, now hungry for the "stage", she joined a female teenage professional singing and dancing trio with whom she recorded an LP. For the next 6 years the group made regular Brazilian television appearances in the best and most recognized children TV programs.

Lambada was born in Brazil when Marcia was 17 and one visit to a club resulted in Marcia's obsession. At 19, Marcia decided to leave the trio to pursue Fashion Design studies at university. She was dividing her life between study and social dancing. Sleep was not high on her agenda! In this period, Marcia was selected to perform Lambada professionally at the shows of Beto Barbosa, the most famous Brazilian Lambada singer.

Consequently, Marcia was contracted to work as a professional dancer all over Japan 12 months. Marcia performed in many cities in Japan (where she extended her South American dance repertoire). Soon after returning to Brazil, she was contracted again to work as a leader dancer in the Japanese entertainment agency. During this period she had an important role as creator of the new costumes for the new show.

Marcia finally returned to Brazil to complete her Fashion Design course after 2 years in Japan. She worked for Forum (Brazil's number one fashion label) for 3 years and during this time, she treated dance as a social activity to facilitate her fashion career.

However, during her holidays Marcia tended to visit the places of dance, such as Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Miami, Punta De'Leste and Buenos Aires, where she gained a comprehensive knowledge of Salsa and Merengue. Marcia's last year in Brazil was completely filled with dance training, such as Samba-Axe, Pagode, Salsa, Zouk, Lambada and Merengue. In 1998 at 26, Marcia decided to travel to Australia to learn English.

Updated in September 2003