People Dancing :: Developing Practice :: Foundation for Community Dance

Developing Practice

Welcome to the area of our website that gives you the resources you need for your professional practice and continued professional development (CPD) in community dance. There's lots of information and plenty of features for you to explore here - take a look around.

People Dancing's Summer School
People Dancing's International Conferences
Fact sheets and legal compliance information
Animated magazine
ArtWorks Alliance
National Occupational Standards
Online learning
Dance for Parkinson's Partnership (DfPP)
Professional standards
Knowledge Bank
Funding support
Events and activities archive
Careers Information
FAQs

Lives, needs and challenges

The freedom that dancing can offer

Dr. Sara Houston has led prize winning research, speaks internationally on the subject and has just published a book, 'Dancing with Parkinson's' where she illustrates the freedom that dancing can offer to people

Read Sara's blog

New to teaching?

People Dancing's International Conference, Glasgow. Photo: Rachel Cherry

Just graduated? Changing career?

Join People Dancing’s Associate Artist, Louise Katerega, for her top 10 signposts to People Dancing's resources to get you started on a happy, healthy teaching journey.

Top 10 tips!

Animated magazine

'Passage for Par' by Rosemary Lee, Par Sands Beach, Cornwall 2018. Photo: © Steve Tanner

Latest edition out now!

Spring-Summer 2019: "There's a right to assert yourself as an artist, and an equal responsibility to respond ethically and sensitively to the people and the place, history included."

Read latest edition

Doing things differently

Pepperland and beyond

Dance artist and writer Kate Swindlehurst reflects upon her experience of the opening night of Mark Morris Dance Group’s UK Pepperland tour and the next day Dance for people living with Parkinson's - Looking ahead: a one-day interactive symposium at Sadler’s Wells, London in March 2019

Read Kate's blog

Friends and a tool belt

Empower, connect and develop

People Dancing's Summer School 2019 is just around the corner and so we spoke to Community Dance Practitioner and Creative Director of Bodyrox Dance Company, Leah Waterfield about the impact of getting a bursary and taking part last year

Read Leah's blog

"Sounds like a mouthful. . ."

"Sounds like a bit of a mouthful. . ."

Co-author and Director of Development, Ruth Bates talks about how our new online learning programme demystifies the fundraising process

Ruth's vlog

Dance for Parkinson's

Dancing for positive shared experience

Community dance artist Rachael James loves the feeling of freedom that dancing brings and the belief that with the right environment, permission and influences, we can all dance. This is what led her to complete her dance for Parkinson’s training…

Read Rachael's blog

Doing access digitally

Louise Wildish - Producer, People Dancing

Access as the starting point for creativity

Thanks to funding from digital commissioning body The Space, the 11 Million Reasons to Dance photography exhibition has hit a much bigger online audience. Yet, as producer Louise Wildish explains, it had to be made accessible…

Read Louise's blog

Translating touch

Kath Kimber-McTiffen, Wriggle Dance Theatre

Dance meets science to explore touch

On meeting a prominent neuroscientist, Kath Kimber-McTiffen, of Wriggle Dance Theatre, could see that the theme of ‘touch’ not only links the arts and science… it might also create a beautiful, interactive dance piece

Read Kath's blog

Dancing for equality

Anne-Marie Smalldon, Combination Dance Company

Heroic tale in women's history made real through dance

Anne-Marie Smalldon, Artistic Director of Combination Dance Company, blogs on 100nehundred, a dance/history collaboration with The National Archives inspired by this year’s centenary of British women’s suffrage and modern gender equality issues

Read Anne-Marie's blog

Financing the dream

People Dancing Director of Development Ruth Bates Lee with her son, Jamie

Your child got into dance school! Now, how to pay for it?

It’s from this time of year People Dancing gets phone calls and emails from anxious parents wanting to support their children through dance training. Here our Director of Development Ruth Bates blogs on how these dreams, though expensive, can be made real.

Read Ruth's blog

People Dancing Music

Curated playlists for dance practitioners

Playlists include; Dance with Older People, Contemporary Dance, Dance for Early Years, South Asian Dance Styles, Lindy Hop, Dance for Parkinson's, Argentine Tango, Creative dance and Bollywood.

Find out more