What is community Dance?
Are you someone who enjoys moving to music and dancing? Do you enjoy dancing with other people? Do you get pleasure from dancing with other people like you - from the same place, from the same background or with an interest in the same kind of dance? Do you enjoy expressing yourself through whatever dance you are doing and wherever it takes place?
If you can answer yes to all or some of these questions you are probably engaged in something called community dance.
Community dance can include:
- Gathering together as a group or community to dance together and get a sense of identity and belonging to a locality or cultural group
- Coming together with others who want to enjoy a specific dance style
- Coming together to work with a dance specialist who is skilled in supporting you to use dance in a creative way to express yourself and your ideas
In all of these experiences there is always the pleasure of moving, being together with others, sharing time positively and performing dance that allows you to express yourself; from the sheer pleasure of responding with your body to music to expressing complex feelings and ideas to others through your dance.
You can learn to share and perform a specific dance style or a piece of choreography, gaining a sense of achievement in having learnt it and begun to get more skilled at it, as well as becoming more included and connected as part of a group of people. Community dance promotes health and well being, self-confidence and better connections between you and others.
What distinguishes the best of community dance is that the people who lead it believe that everyone can dance regardless of their age or ability and that everyone can be included and make a contribution - that each individual matters.