From the editor
Ken Bartlett, Creative Director, Foundation for Community Dance
For this issue of Animated we asked artists and teachers working in participatory dance but using different traditions and styles to write about what they thought about the benefits of people participating in dance, and what they got out of working with people in participatory dance themselves. The idea: to see what they had in common.
The writers reveal the passion they have in common for the dance and dancers they work with, and the joy and pleasure that brings to the participants. They demonstrate a diverse dancing communities, and an enormous commitment to getting people dancing whether for recreational, educational or artistic reasons. They reveal a dedication to creating positive experiences for their dancers, acknowledging dance as a powerful creative and social tool and its significant contribution to health and wider well-being. Underpinning everything, they reveal a commitment to supporting people to develop a life-long relationship with dance and dancing. Whatever area of dance we work it appears that we do share a common wealth: of experiences, connections, and benefits that dance and dancing can provide.
We also feature the work of the Jane Attenborough Dance in Education (JADE) Fellowship to support performing artists in career transition to become effective educational and community practitioners, look at two approaches to developing disabled dancers in professional contexts and examine a collaboration between a choreographer, a community dance group, a filmmaker and digital artists. We hear about how a dance agency is using 'cabarets' to bring the different strands of their programme closer together and in our international section are given an insight to an the intercultural dancing dialogue in South Africa.
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Animated: Autumn 2007