People Dancing - Foundation for Community Dance

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.

Summer School 2018

People Dancing's Summer School runs from Monday 23 - Saturday 28 July 2018 at De Montfort University, Leicester. There are eleven inspiring courses to choose from, with world-class artists and teachers.

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Animated magazine

Animated magazine is focused towards participatory dance practice and current matters facing artists, teachers and leaders. Latest Winter 2017/18 edition out now with 13 inspiring articles to explore.

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Also in this section:

People Dancing's Summer School 2018

People Dancing International Conferences

Fact sheets and legal compliance info

Animated magazine

ArtWorks Alliance

National Occupational Standards

Online Learning

Professional Code of Conduct

Dance for Parkinson's Partnership (DfPP)

Funding support

Go back

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

Teacher and pupil reunited

Expertise runs deep at Summer School

Continuity and quality in the highest standards of community dance practice are demonstrated by the impressive line-up of course leaders at People Dancing’s 10th Summer School (23-28 July 2018).

Cheshire days recalled

It don't mean a thing...

Swing sisters question politics of partner dance

People Dancing members Nancy Hitzig and Cat Foley are rehearsing a dance, music, comedy showcase for the Grimeborn Festival, London. Here dancer and choreographer Nancy shares her lindy hop journey, looks at the politics of partner dance and ‘Swing, Sister, Swing’.

Read Nancy's blog

One bursary awarded...

Bursary helps Katie get to our 10th Summer School

A Kettering-based dance practitioner wanting to make her practice even more inclusive has secured one of two bursaries from the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) to help its members attend this year’s 10th People Dancing Summer School.

...and one still available

Financing the dream

People Dancing Director of Development Ruth Bates 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

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

Viva Eastbourne!

Claire Chritou (left) and Claire Tabraham celebrate their Arts Award of the Year

BBC captures tale of two Claires

If you tuned into BBC Radio 4’s Listening Project, which profiled a number of conversations about ‘The Power of Dance’, you may remember the first podcast that featured two women who have devoted themselves to Eastbourne Dance Space…

Get the full story

Learning from Parkinson's

Curiosity, the moving body and identity

Independent dance artist Danielle Teale, will co-lead an ‘Introduction to dance for Parkinson’s’ course at this year’s People Dancing Summer School. Here Danielle blogs on how dancing with Parkinson's has made a significant contribution to her dance practice... and her life.

Read Danielle's blog

Dance and community

Debbie Purtill, balletLORENT. Photo by Iolo Penri

Inspiring us to come together through dance

Debbi Purtill, Artistic Associate at balletLORENT, will lead a workshop at this year’s People Dancing Summer School (23-28 July). With a passion for dancing and for people, Debbi is most inspired when they come together… forming a creative community.

Read Debbi's blog

Dancing a way of life

How do we dance with those whose major challenge is in movement?

We dance to express our lives. For some, this can be a life with Parkinson’s. Dance artist Ruth Kent explains how, in growing a dance class in Aberdeen, she wanted to shape content around real life experiences

Read Ruth's blog

Completely tangoed: body and soul

Once a dancer, always a dancer

She began with ballet, took up tango and, despite her Parkinson’s diagnosis, dance artist and writer Kate Swindlehurst has continued to be what she’s been since she was four-years-old… a dancer

Read Kate's blog

People Dancing Music