People Dancing

Keep on moving: young onset Parkinson’s, disco and the power of connection

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Independent Dance Artists, Michael Joseph (MJ), Lindsay Moffatt and Louise White joined forces to create a fresh-thinking, disco based workshop for people with Young Onset Parkinson’s in their home county of Hertfordshire, eastern England. Here, they continue the collaboration, telling how their roads met and merged and offering insight into what it takes to make a first move in your Parkinson’s dance career.

“A real, but old urgency...”

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Georgina Cockburn is a PhD student at The Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University centred on People Dancing’s Live Well and Dance with Parkinson’s programme. We join her on her research journey around the UK contemplating the importance of capturing individuals’ lived experience in the programme itself and the wider world.

Breaking conventions, building futures

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Niquelle La Touche, Head of Academy Breakin' Convention opens the door on this new London home of learning, youth voice and hip hop evolution.

Rigour and Reality

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Researchers, Claire Farmer MSc and Dr. Ashley McGill share thoughts emerging from Akademi’s ongoing South Asian dance project for children with Special Educational Needs in the South East of England.

Winter 2025 digital edition

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Read and download the complete Winter 2025 digital edition of Animated magazine online in a flipbook.

Dance of Togetherness

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Independent Early Years Dance practitioner, Mafê Toledo, shares the delights of her practice which aims to enhance the parent-child bond through dance.

Shaquille George & Bakani Pick-Up, dancing in CROWD residency. Photo: Usha Mahenthiralingam.

Gifts From an Unproductive Space

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Maddy Costa, writer and researcher in socially engaged dance practice ruminates on the outcomes of CROWD, a pan-European, cross-disciplinary, participatory-focussed artist residency programme.

Big Flock 2024 by Karel Jasper with Zosia Jo, Sophie Lorimer and Tedi.

Roots and Branches

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

In Pembrokshire, rural South Wales, Zosia Jo, Artistic Director of Joon Dance, dreamed of a genuinely local dance company of local dancers. We join her and the emerging artists she is nurturing on their project to make that dream reality.

Elevate

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Academic, producer and access consultant, Dr Mo Pietroni-Spenst, opens up the process behind Elevate, her innovative, disabled-led, inclusive ‘slow’ conference delivered in partnership with inclusive arts organisations in Kent and Medway, South East of England.

Dancing Down the Road Not Taken

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Retired accountant David Ainsworth, turns choreographer in his sixties with the support of Ascendance and his Parkinson’s Dance group peers in the English town of Headingly.

Year 6 Furze Platt Junior School, Maidenhead. Photo: Becky Tishaw.

Career Introspective

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Dance and fitness specialist and consultant, Jane Douglass – in an article born out of People Dancing’s Writing course last summer – illuminates the long and variable career path in dance, which, in her case, led to community dance leadership in Buckinghamshire, Southern England.

Photographer: Rachel Cherry courtesy of The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.

Reflections on Research

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Imogen Aujla of Dance in Mind, reflects on her inclusive dance research past and future – including her role in a new study for The Working Group, (Candoco Dance Company, Corali Dance Company, People Dancing, Stopgap Dance Company and TIN Arts) funded by the Arts Council of England.

Krystal S. Lowe’s Mud Pies. Photos: Tegan Foley Photography.

Change-Making in the Balance

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Krystal S. Lowe, a multi-disciplinary artist who was part of People Dancing’s 11 Million Reasons to Dance: Cymru project considers her current place in the landscape – literally as figuratively – as a disabled artist of colour.

Over And Over (And Over Again), Candoco, Dan Daw Creative Projects. Photo: Hugo Glendinning.

Candoco: Trail Blazing Legacy, Inclusive Future

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

For more than three decades, Candoco Dance Company have been one of the UK’s leading disability-led dance companies. Co-Artistic Director, Dominic Mitchell and Executive Director, Melanie Precious honour both its history and its need to evolve and change.

11 Million Reasons to Reflect

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Founder and CEO of Illuminate Freedom, Louise Dickson, shares the journey to and from her involvement in the project, including how her invisible disability shaped her unique charity dedicated to people with sight loss and/or chronic pain.

Learning to Give and Take the Lead, People Dancing Summer Intensive 2024. Photo: Mark Anderson.

A Stake in New Ground

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Artistic Director, Sarah Archdeacon writes about Corali Dance Company’s 35-year journey and why what they do is imperative to the lives, progressions and professional careers of dancers with a learning disability.

Reflections: 11 Million Reasons to Dance Ten Years On

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Louise Wildish, People Dancing’s outgoing Head of Inclusion introduces ‘Reflections’ and each author at the beginning of their articles.

Special Feature: Reflections - 10th Anniversary of 11 Million Reasons to Dance

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

11 Million Reasons to Dance is a photography exhibition and short film programme that was conceptualised and launched in 2015 through funding from Unlimited Impact and Arts Council England.

Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance 2010, Suzanne Cowan Photo: Linda Robertson.

Fantastic worlds: 20 years of the Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance

Animated Issue: Winter 2025

Professor Ralph Buck and Dr. Barbara Snook look back on two decades of a unique, supported opportunity for community dance artist scholars in New Zealand.

Various credits - please visit related articles.

Micromovements: Dance, eco-somantics and climate justice

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

This issue, we have been delighted and grateful to collaborate with dance researcher and educator, Dr Ruth Pethybridge, who brings you this collection of articles by five independent dance and interdsciplinary artists from around the globe, who place care for it at the heart of their practice.

In it's purest form

Animated Issue: Winter 2002

Gaby Agis and Joe Moran offer a rare insight into the work of Joan Skinner and a system, which is fast becoming mainstream

Doodles and Daydreams. Photo: Brian Slater/Light Attitude.

We deserve to be seen: Empowering communities through intergenerational dance practice

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Helen Linsell, Artistic Director of dance and social inclusion charity Dance United Yorkshire (DUY), shares her experience delivering an intergenerational dance project with one of Bradford’s most deprived and challenged communities. As Bradford approaches its Year of Culture in 2025, Helen highlights the learning DUY will take into one of its most ambitious and significant years to date.

Poppy Horwood & Joel Edwards, Frogs in Bogs, Eisteddfod Genedlaethol. Photo: Eisteddfod Genedlaethol

Wyth (Eight)

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Angharad Harrop, an independent dance artist from Wales, introduces Wyth (Eight), an joyous initiative to simultaneously preserve Welsh folk dance tradition and innovate with it for the future re-igniting national pride in older generations and new.

Live Well and Dance with Parkinson’s North East Performance Collective. Photo: Alice Elizabeth Photo

Growing wings

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Pagan Hunt Co Artistic Director Pelican Theatre, describes how on the bumpy road of post-graduation, an early career encounter with dance for people living with Parkinson’s led to discovery of people and places, values and commitment that helped establish both their teaching and their artistry.

Alexis Haines, Steph Sandy, Suzanne Cantwell Birkin, Off Balance Dance. Photo: Alexis Haines.

Self-determined: Dance, dreams, difference and me

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Independent Disabled Dance Artist/Consultant, Steph Sandy is based in the West Midlands region. One of the UK’s first physically disabled dance graduates. Here, she offers us compelling contemplation of the choices, chances and changes which have led to a fresh start mid-career as a community and creative dance professional.

Dancing the biomes: An ecological dance pedagogy

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Improvisational movement artist, Stephanie Gottlob has followed a path begun in North America, exploring movement improvisations with nature, leading to England, where she designed her ecological dance pedagogy. The source of this journey is the co-creative relationship she experiences with landscape, which continues to inspire her current creative pedagogic activism and mission for embodying environmental ethics.

Jared Gradinger. Photo: Anna Guittierez.

Everything became a garden: Co-creating with non-human participants

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

In this article, culminating with a link to an exclusive access spoken, audio-mediation, Berlin-based interdisciplinary artist, Jared Gradinger, shares his journey into the deeply personal, transformative co-creative partnership with Nature he has been cultivating since 2012.

Performers; Jo Hellier, Nussatari, Into The Mountain 2019. Photo: Felicity Crawshaw.

Walking out of our bodies and into the mountains

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

For over twenty years, Simone Kenyon, intra-disciplinary artist, dancer, and Feldenkrais practitioner has developed a practice of expanded choreographies encompassing movement, ecology, cultural geographies and walking arts to create participatory events exploring our relationships with place. Here, she discusses finding ecological and embodied connection through mountain-place-relational performance making exploring our relationships with place.

Minou T. Polleros, Between Earth & Sky, 2012, Wiltshire, UK. Photo: Darren Jan Sutton.

The way out is in: Planetary entaglement - why feeling more, matters more

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Dancer, dance resercher and visual artist based in the South West of England, Minou Tsambika Polleros, offers the idea of dance as a galvising practice to help us take action in a climate crisis and introduces two global and one local eco-somatic practice networks, the International Forum for Eco-Embodied Arts (IFEEA), the Institute for the Study of Somatic Communication (ISSC) and Movement Network South West (MNSW).

Marília Coehlo, Reforest. Photo: Bruno Kuru.

Reforesting the body

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Marília Coelho is a dance artist, choreographer and director based in Brazil who seeks, through dance, to articulate ancestral knowledge with a contemporary approach to life based on decolonisation. This is reflected for us in a journey she takes us on deep into the forest behind her home in Botucatu, São Paulo, where she also co-leads the activist and cultural space Mirante das Artes.

What does a dancer have to offer this broken world?

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Dance researcher and educator, Dr Ruth Pethybridge is a Trustee of People Dancing, a lecturer in Dance & Choreography at Falmouth University and on the The Place MA Dance: Communities Participation Activism. Here, she opens up the space of this special feature, introducing its themes and authors and invites us into a dynamic reflection on the state of dance, the world and their relationship to each other.

Eleesha and Participants, Dance Mama Film.

Ten years and counting: participating in dance as a parent

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Lucy McCrudden, Founder/CEO, Dance Mama reflects on the position of parents in dance from her time in training through to the latest developments of the award-winning non-profit company founded to support dance professionals who are parents through activities, events mentoring and research.

Mauktik – Pearl: 35 years of Nupur Arts

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Join Shreya Vadnerkar, dance artist and Associate Director of Nupur Arts on a journey through it’s evolution: from humble beginnings as newcomers to the UK pioneering Bharatanatyam in the city of Leicester, to achieving recognition as an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO).

Sarah Covington, Sophie Holt, perFORM Open Rehearsal. Photo: Miranda Laurence.

A light in the darkness: Where can community dance take us now

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

CEO of Reside Dance C.I.C. and Ph.D. Candidate, Jennifer Christine Stokes invites us to question our response to current times in community dance as we accompany her through shifts in geography, career and thinking that led to an expansion and re-definition of ‘community’ in her practice.

Company of People. Photo: Drazen Priganica.

“Where hard edges yield....”

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

TC Howard, Independent Dance Artist, based in Sheffield, takes us along on her incredible journey with Yorkshire Dance’s inter-generational Company of People and considers how we create courageous and adventurous spaces for artists and communities.

Summer 2023 digital edition

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Read and download the complete Summer 2023 digital edition of Animated magazine online in a flipbook.

Winter 2024 digital edition

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Read and download the complete Winter 2024 digital edition of Animated magazine online in a flipbook.

Animated Summer 2024 cover: Into The Mountain 2019. Image: Felicity Crawshaw.

Summer 2024 digital edition

Animated Issue: Summer 2024

Read and download the complete Summer 2024 digital edition of Animated magazine online in a flipbook.

Darcy Kitchener. Photo: Charlie Keen Media.

Passion in process

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Creative Producer/Facilitator, Darcy Kitchener on a recent dance and digital art residency with young disabled people in Bedford, sharing its mission, methods and results – including deeper awareness about her own practice.

Sarima and Eloise in studio. Photo: Sarima Chukundah.

Nurturing waves: The 10 year ripple effect of Artistry Youth Dance

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Kamara Gray, Artistic Director of Artistry Youth Dance, looks back on a decade of developing and empowering young dancers of African and Caribbean heritage. Here, on the page, as in the studio, she creates the space for self-expression as two company members, Eloise Badu and Sarima Chukundah, recount how the company propelled them to the world-renowned Ailey School’s Summer Intensive in New York, for a taste of the professional dance performance industry.

Stella Rousham, Dance Art Journal’s Residency, Siobhan Davies Studios, 2021. Photo: Sophie Chinner.

More than a luxurious hobby: Dance’s value in a crisis of care

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Creative Health and Community Dance practitioner, Stella Rousham calls urgently for the embedding of dance as a resource of care and shares her holistic approach to dance for health with groups at Trinity Laban and The Blair Academy.

Andrei Roman, Freewe. Photo: Marius Mates.

Breakin’ Through

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

For Romanian-born, West Midlands-based hip hop dancer, teacher and event organiser, Andrei Roman Breakin’ opened up the world. Here, he interweaves his personal journey with background and insights into the dance form’s debut at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Charlotte Arnold, Amal Nefi, Vicci Riley, Soundness of Heart. Photo: Dominic Erik Davies.

All The Good Stuff: FRONTLINEdance turns 21

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

In a heartfelt blend of fact and feeling, Rachael Lines, Artistic Director of FRONTLINEdance lets us in on the struggles and satisfactions of over 21-years providing creativity, care, access and connection for their local and the national community of disabled dancers, makers and leaders.

Takeshi Matsumoto (TM) & Makiko Aoyama (MA), Club Origami, TM, MA & Robert Howat. Photo: Summer Dean

Little Big Dance: Co-creating dance with early years

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Here, the first UK Professor of Dance Education, Dr Angela Pickard from Sidney De Haan Research Centre for Arts and Health at Canterbury Christ Church University, discusses how the Mosaic approach provides a useful tool for developing and evaluating dance work with early years children as co-creators.

A firm foundation: People Dancing professional qualifications

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Taking a long and occasionally winding journey of development, via some unexpected bumps in the road, the new People Dancing Professional Qualifications were recently released into the world. Executive Director of Qualifications Anna Leatherdale and CEO Chris Stenton explain more about where the idea came from, how it all works and what the qualifications can offer the profession now and in the future.

Keira Martin (left) and Sioda Adams, Good Blood. Photo Joe Armitage.

“Down to earth and straight up....”

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Dancing with honesty and truth inside Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, Keira Martin, a most independent of dance artists, tell us like it is from a treasured position of trust among Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities in Yorkshire in a conversation with Louise Katerega.

George Clement Peer. Photo: Jayne Devlin.

Re:fReSh

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Jayne Devlin and Caroline Schanche, Co-Directors of Inner Ground Dance Company, based in Cornwall, invite us into a project where many mature movers met very contemporary practice.

“A vibrant tapestry of inclusion…”: A South East Asian journey of partnership and progress

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

In this article, Anthony Evans, Co-Director of We Are Epic, describes the collaborative journey undertaken with Indonesian partners, Nalitari Dance Company in Jogja and Ballet ID in Jakarta, to reveal the rich tapestry of talent among the nation’s disabled dancers.

Bistro Fada choreographed by Sue Jack. Photo: Tracy Levy, © Margaret Morris Movement International.

Making the case for movement and dance: “Not just the decoration on the top…”

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

As she reveals a powerful new report making the case for investing in dance and movement for all, Tracy Levy, former Chair of the Movement and Dance Division of the Sport and Recreation Alliance 2015-2021, talks the importance of translating the joy it brings to those involved into a language that speaks to the heart of government.

Dance Transport Workshop at Yorkshire Dance. Photo: Dani Bower.

A Wondering Willow Dreams: a directors reflection

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Sara Dos Santos is a London-based artist, cultural producer and policy advisor passionate about raising the profile of underrepresented voices in the UK and beyond. Here, she contemplates the nature of professional and community dance alongside the results of a first foray into dance she led with Clean Break, an acclaimed women’s theatre company, who change minds and lives in performance, prison and the community.

EncoreEast, Home From Home. Photo: Roswitha Chesher.

More than just a number

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Home From Home was a large-scale participatory project which led to a performance, In the End we Begin, directed by Protein’s Luca Silvestrini. Characterised by ambition, innovation and collaboration, it was produced by EncoreEast, a company of older dancers in the East of England and brought together three venues, six dance- makers and 50 performers aged 56 to 82. Jeanette Siddall CBE, a member of EncoreEast and one of the UK’s most respected dance leaders, offers us the joy and passion of her perspective as a participant.

Tommy Franzen, ZooNation The Kate Prince Company. Photo: Andrej Uspenski.

Dancers’ Career Development: Here for the journey

Animated Issue: Winter 2024

Where do you turn when the time comes for a career change within or beyond dance? For an ever-broadening demographic of British-based dance professionals across half a century, it has been to Dancers Career Development, the charity founded to ensure that, from training (and re-training) to retirement age, no-one need navigate that sometimes complex path alone. Vanessa Lefrançois, its incoming Executive Director, interweaves the voices of those it supports, shedding light on past, present and future.

My East is not your East

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

Independent Dance Artist, Jane Chan invites us all into a ’questioning practice’ about who we are and where we speak from, that we might move beyond simply not offending to understanding, care and respect

What do we do now? The Deconstruction of Four Decades of Dance Development in England

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Susanne Burns, Karen Gallagher and June Gamble are three of Britain’s most respected super-producers, arts innovators and cultural consultants. Here they ruminate, reflect and call for revolution as they take us on a journey through four decades of dance development in England.

Staying off- balance

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Suzanne Cantwell-Birkin moved to Coventry in the English West Midlands from Philadelphia in 2003 where she met Alexis Haines who completed her BA in dance at Coventry University in 2001. Eventually forming the “small but mighty” Off-Balance Dance Company, follow them here though two decades of challenge and triumph in the city they call home, where dance has been their only constant, sustaining themselves and their community.

Reimagine: dancing through the lens

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Embracing the age of digital photography, Mark Anderson, of West Midlands-based infuseDANCE, contemplates the power of fusing dance and photography for young people, offering instant inspiration, increased engagement, mental health survival strategies and wider audiences.

Making Sense: Connection, collaboration and creativity in inclusive practice

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Hayley Graham, one of twenty dance artists with Sense charity’s National Inclusive Dance Programme 2022-23, looks back on her experience together with Rebecca Randall, Sense’s Resident Dance Artist and Stephanie Tyrell its Head of Arts. Here they describe a delicate practice of building trust between those who create, those who lead and those who support a dance session to reveal artistic potential.

Human first, dancer second

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

“Human first, dancer second.” This is the ethos and motivation behind Birmingham’s Linden Dance Company, with professional artists, young people and communities alike. How, co-artistic director Sara Macqueen asks, can we create a safe and motivational space for people to thrive both physically and mentally?

Global Folk for global folk

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Maria Malone, Co-Founder and CEO/Executive Director of Movema, gives us a fascinating insight into their Global Folk project, where Morris met Ukranian and Indian dance leading to revelations about what English culture can learn from its past identity and that of others to heal its present and embrace a more peaceable, diverse future.

Feeling the Rush: process and protest for our times

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

The large-scale outdoor spectacular Rush, by choreographer and Artistic Director of Southpaw Robby Graham, was commissioned by ArtReach for Leicester’s Journey’s Festival During the Summer of 2022. This was the fourth iteration of a work that has become Southpaw’s signature and a touchstone for our troubled times. One year on, Robby in conversation with People Dancing’s Louise Katerega reflects on the origins, journey and final destination of Rush, a work that has remained resonant for almost a decade and spawned a host of unlikely dancers in some of the most challenged communities in four locations in England...

An embodied understanding

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

The Velcro Collective is a female-led dance, theatre and participatory arts collective based in the South West of England, that brings outdoor performance to life for visually impaired and sighted children and family audiences. Co-founder, Louise Brown, shares the uniquely collaborative process behind their latest show, Crunch, in conversation with visually impaired dancer, Holly Thomas and audio describer, Dr. Louise Fryer.

A very contemporary dance project

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Sharon Scaniglia, previously manager of ArtsSpeak in Nottingham, shares her appreciation of supporting artists, how creativity combats loneliness and her passionate belief in older age as an important time of rich self-expression. These come together, for her, in the magic of Cool Company, a gallery-based dance project for over 60s led by choreographer, Deane McQueen.

A choreography of parenting

Animated Issue: Summer 2023

Anita Clark, Director of The Work Room in Glasgow, Scotland, frames the voices of parent-artists as they launch a new resource. Born of a new project, RE-EMERGING, it is offered for others, like them, contemplating or navigating the complexities of resuming their practice alongside the care and raising of children.

Winter 2023 digital edition

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

Read and download the complete Winter 2023 digital edition of Animated magazine online in a flipbook.

“Never a line drawn or a spark put out”: Supporting visibility and challenging assumptions through youth dance in Scotland

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

YDance is the national dance organisation for children and young people in Scotland. It provides a range of dance opportunities across the country in rural and urban communities for young people aged 0-25 years from a diverse backgrounds and experiences. Here, Artistic Director, Anna Kenrick and Kelly Shearer, Head of Participation reflect, through three recent projects, on the direction it has taken to support the visibility of and access to dance for young disabled people, young people at risk and New Scots.

A 21st Century lifesaver

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

At the beginning of 2022 People Dancing welcomed Dr Sue Smith, Senior Lecturer & Course Leader BA (Hons) Dance & Choreography, Academy of Music and Theatre Arts (AMATA) Falmouth University as Chair. Here, we share Sue’s powerful opening address to us all about dance as an essential – especially in troubled times

Rep and reputation

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

How can a touring dance company build loyalty, real relationships and stay relevant to the communities it serves when it is only passing through? Answer: in each location, deploy the unique skills and personal connections of its freelance community and participatory dance artists as ambassadors. Emily Crouch, Engagement Producer for National Dance Company Wales, tells us more

Leaving a positive imprint

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

What, from our earliest dance experiences, stays with us to the other side of our professional training? Ashley Jordan (AJ) Artistic Director of Coventry-based Ascension Dance, shines a light on the youth dancer he was to illuminate the professional he has become – one with a passion to both replicate and grow dance opportunities for the next generation in his home city.

Soft skills in dance: a new guide to thinking about your professional development

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

Imagine how useful it would be to articulate our skills of working with others successfully, sensitively, with care – to ourselves, employers, funders and collaborators... Sara Houston, Professor of Dance and Community Engagement, University of Roehampton did just this as part of a European partnership Empowering Dance. Below she describes and invites feedback on the result of their enquiry: a rich, engaging and free digital resource useful within and beyond dance

Professional practice and practice led enquiry

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

Deborah Norris, Programme Manager and Phaedra Petsilas, Programme Leader & Head of Studies, share the vision, ethos and community of people on the MA Dance Research for Professional Practitioners at Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance

Introducing A Feminist Pedagogy Blueprint for Recreational Dance

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

Louise Marshall, Dance and Accessible Arts producer at Eden Court in the Highlands of Scotland, prompted by a desire to dig further into the influence of recreational dance on adolescent participants, has developed an easy-to-use document that prompts other dance teachers to consider their practice in relation to gender, in particular those identifying as female

From source to sea: a journey of flow

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

Sophie Lorimer pays joyful testament to her early lived experience caring for a parent with Young-Onset Parkinson’s as the creative catalyst for her career in community dance. Join her on the journey so far...

LPM Dance create global connections

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

George Adams and Helen Gould, Artistic Directors of La Petite Mort Dance Theatre (LPM) share how the growth of their practice led to an international collaboration re-visiting the approach of 20th Century Mexican-American dance pioneer Jose Limon as source material for inclusive dance now

Dance of attunement

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

What difference can a dance artist make to the lives of people in crisis? Since January 2019, independent artist Louise Klarnett has been the dance artist in residence at The Magpie Project, a community initiative for homeless under- fives and their mothers based in Newham, East London. Her words afford us an exclusive insight into this extremely protected space to witness the ‘dance of attunement’: a touchstone of the supremely delicate, ultra-responsive and deeply informed practice she has developed there both in person and online

Choreography Geography: A change of direction

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

A combination of geography, choreography and a creative response to COVID 19 refreshed the practice and reset the direction of Bridport Youth Dance Company, which is based beside the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site in south western rural England. Teacher, producer and choreographer, Nikki Northover, explains how

“If it needs doing...” Reflections on a decade of DanceSyndrome

Animated Issue: Winter 2023

In November 2022, North-West based inclusive dance charity DanceSyndrome was confirmed as one of Art’s Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations for 2023-2026. In February 2023, the organisation will celebrate 10 years as a charity. Here, Sue and Jen Blackwell, the mother and daughter duo who formed the charity, reflect on their journey and the barriers that they faced along the way