People Dancing

People Dancing is the network and centre of knowledge for community dance practice, research and training.

Join People Dancing and connect with dancers, teaching artists, community practitioners, and dance & arts organisations committed to access and inclusion in dance. Explore our refreshed membership offer for individuals, organisations and education.

We are a Registered Charity (no.328392) and not-for profit organisation, established to advance public education in the art of dance. We offer subscriptions and memberships for individual dance artists, teachers and leaders, for organisations of all sizes, and the general public. A new Friends of People Dancing scheme has now launched - find our more here.

Our organisational governance brings together a diverse group of highly skilled and dance professionals, with Trustees from all four nations of the UK. Our staff team are highly knowledgeable about community and participatory dance, and can be on the end of the phone when you need a friendly voice.

Producing, Co-creation & Inclusion in Performance for Children

Are you a dancer and facilitator who wants to make your work more inclusive for neurodivergent and disabled children? Join Rosie Heafford, Second Hand Dance on Wed 22 July at People Dancing's Summer Programme!

Let Them Disrupt: Children as Co-Creators

Rosie Heafford, Co-Director of Second Hand Dance reflects on the emergence of the co-creative practice she will share on our Summer Workshop Programme - an iterative, disability-affirming methodology that values embodiment and makes performance more accessible and inclusive.

National Youth Ballet workshop: Tue 21 July

NYB All In! Company in class. Photo: Jules Renahan.

NYB All In! Introduction to Accessible Ballet Practices - find creative new ways to include disabled and neurodivergent dancers. Widen your skills and introduce ballet to a group for the first time.

Caring Cultures in Dance workshop: Wed 22 July

DCD’s EVOLVE London career development workshop, March 2025. Photographer: Becky Lee Brun.

In the rush of everyday life, wellbeing is often the first thing we put on hold. Delivered by Dancers' Career Development & One Dance UK, these inspirational speakers will help you unlock the potential for greater care of self and others.

Dance and health practice

For 10 years Move Dance Feel has been supporting women affected by cancer through dance. Founded by Emily Jenkins, it is a unique, female-led community, helping women feel more at home in their bodies, less alone in their experiences and better equipped to navigate the challenges that cancer brings…

Best of Both Worlds: Facilitator To Artist and Back Again

Lildonia Lawrence, a movement practitioner, wellbeing coach and diversity specialist based in Bristol, reflects on inner transformation, co-creation and decolonisation over the course of Movema’s Wildfire Rising development programme for artists of the Global Majority.

Become a Friend of People Dancing

Safer Community Dance Practice: Thu 23 July

SideKick Dance, inclusive dance based at Ellesmere College and Curve Theatre, Leicester. Photo: Fusi

Safety is not an optional addition to dance leadership, but a core professional responsibility. Develop the confidence to integrate this into your practice. This one-day workshop, with Charlotte Tomlinson, provides essential training for dance practitioners.

Look How Far We've Come

Ashley Jordan, Company Director of Ascension Dance in Coventry offers a very personal reflection on the transformative power of youth dance experiences and celebrates Pinnacle Dance Platform 2025, an event created by Ascension to give young people a space to grow, connect, and express themselves through movement.

An inclusive space includes you

Kyra Norman is a dancer and choreographer, living in West Cornwall, UK, who has been exploring ideas and practices of movement, connection and place for over 20 years. Here she discusses sustaining ourselves, in order to sustain our work with communities, in challenging times.

Picking up the Pieces

Bradford Women's Dance Company. Photo: Brian Slater.

Helen Linsell, Artistic Director of Dance United Yorkshire, shares her practice working with vulnerable adult women and reflects on the impact of adopting a trauma-informed approach to ensure meaningful and long-term engagement.

Moving Beyond Convention

In this blog, an accompaniment to this vlog live from the breaking competition at last summer’s Paris Olympics, Jonzi D, Artistic Director of Breakin’ Convention speaks from the heart about finding himself inspired by the dancers and deeply disappointed in the systems around them - including THAT notoriously toxic (mis)reporting of the women’s competition.

The transformative power of dance

In the spring of 2024, medical student Andria Saji worked with People Dancing’s Deputy CEO and Head of Health & Wellbeing Yaël Owen, to explore the transformative power of dance for people living with Parkinson’s in the context of her training as a doctor ...and as a lifelong dancer...

Approaches to Dance for Early Years Qualification

‘Vitolda Klein’ – Vitolda Klein (Unsplash)

The Level 4 Certificate Approaches to Dance for Early Years is a single unit qualification that introduces dance artists to key issues that may affect the delivery of dance sessions for children aged 4 years and under.

Approaches to Dance with Older People Qualification

People Dancing Summer School. Photo: Rachel Cherry.

The Level 4 Certificate Approaches to Dance with Older People is a single unit qualification that introduces dance artists to key issues that may affect older people who participate in dance.

A gift returned

After a long career as a writer and broadcaster, Frances Byrnes re-kindled her love of dancing after 40-year break and embarked on an unexpected journey of new adventures in practice and performance across the North of England. Here she lets us in on some complex and deeply personal feelings involved in coming back to dance.

People Dancing

People Dancing is the network and centre of knowledge for community dance practice, research and training.

Join People Dancing and connect with dancers, teaching artists, community practitioners, and dance & arts organisations committed to access and inclusion in dance. Explore our refreshed membership offer for individuals, organisations and education.

Our organisational governance brings together a diverse group of highly skilled and dance professionals, with Trustees from all four nations of the UK. Our staff team are highly knowledgeable about community and participatory dance, and can be on the end of the phone when you need a friendly voice.

Contribute / Advertise

This is our invitation to you to contribute your own voice.

Organisational Policies

Please find our Organisational Policies here.