Artistic Director / Choreographer
& performance specialist
Community Dance Projects
Performance projects with community at the heart via workshops and community interactive performance projects.
Seed Dance
Sometimes a project comes along that one would never expect because the synergies seem so very different but in laising and being a member of a local community gardening group an opportunity arrived to collaborate with ' Edible Avenue SW8' and from this is borne 'The Seed Dance'
Commissioned as part of Wandsworth fringe and the Chelsea Fringe the 'Seed Dance' has become the first of what we hope to be many more projects that explore the importance of Planting in local communities alongside celebrating and spending time in these spaces. On this basis we engaged with students from 'St Georges C of E primary school and spent time with them discussing the different seeds and the importance of seeds in relation to wildlife etc. Students then got to explore some of their ideas finishing in a performance at the local 'Rose Community Club Room' as part of the George and Harry Wedding Celebrations George.This was a great success and has been the starting point for a new way of looking at community enegagement and we look forward to doing more of these types of events
Still Standing Not Standing Still Part 1
Commissioned by Wandsworth and Nine Elms On the Southbank 'Still Standing, not Standing Still' represented a really interesting moment in understanding the difficulties and joys of working in community group settings.
The proposal was to create a proffessional work that community members could be involved in from start to finish and that would lead to a final proffessional performance with a film record of the day for them to take with them.
Our over 50's were people from the community who had an interest and in some instances training in some form of dance and wanted to experience and be part of a bigger event
They were amazing, as was the whole team. Both proffessional dancers and community dancers developed new friendships from this event and some have gone on to continue their practise and create their own works as a result.
Happy Dance at the Happy Streets Festival
Commissioned by Nine Elms on the Southbank and Wandsworth Borough Council this dance piece was commisioned and created as part of a wider brief to celebrate all things Happy and the completion of Yinka Ilori's Thessally Road Bridge Design which has now gone on to win a number of awards.
The project: to engage the local community and explore new ways of bringing people together.
From past projects we already knew that Dance has a great role to play in bringing people together. It encompasses so many different health beneficial components including being social, being a form of physical exercise and promoting mental agility to name but a few but most notably it is a medum availiable to all and adaptable to all. In addition everyone can do it at the same time and thats pretty cool and something we used to our advantage. With this in mind we created a dance for all taught by Video and then in workshops engaging the local community and a local school. The challenge: to go and teach their friends and family the dance in readiness for the big day. As the pictures demonstrrate it was a fantastic day and one filled with happiness and engagement for all ages.
