Young people with additional needs:
Dance Interaction Programme (2015 - present)
Long term one-to-one sessions for children and young people with complex needs, using dance as a tool for personal interaction, communication, expression, self determination and confidence building. The movement content is tailored to individual need and interest and developed organically by the dance facilitator alongside the participant. In partnership with Derbyshire Virtual School in 5 Derbyshire Special Schools. Workshops at Get Creative Derbyshire.
​
The Dance Interaction programme is currently being developed as a mental and emotional health intervention for people of all ages through partnership between LTA and the Derbyshire Dales and High Peak Primary Care Trust using Social Prescribing as a delivery pathway. During the period of Covid-19 restrictions this will be delivered via online platform and enable people to participate from within their own homes.
Moving Together (2017 - present)
Integrated youth dance group, regular sessions bringing young people with and without disability together to develop skills, play with ideas, improvise and create work. Moving Together has performed at Interface, Derbyshire Youth Dance Platform, Deda 2019, 2020 as well as at Wirksworth Festival. This group is currently meeting for weekly sessions via zoom as a response to the Covid-19 restrictions.
​
Work with refugee individuals and communities:
Culture Cafe (2018 - present)
Culture Cafe is a community project responding to the needs of Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) and their carers, Asylum Seeking families, and refugees living in Derbyshire. It provides opportunity for people to get together on a regular basis to participate in creative activity, social interaction and shared food, with the aim to:
- make and establish friendships and social networks
- create connections to the local community
- share stories, experiences and concerns
- celebrate the diverse cultures, and individual histories, represented in the group through art, music and dance
- give opportunity for expression through creative activity (art, song, drumming, spoken / written word).
Culture Cafe also recognises the sharing of food to be a central part of recognising and valuing diverse cultures, and so each event includes a “pot luck supper”, in which members are invited to bring a culturally specific dish to share with the group.
This project is temporarily suspended due to Covid-19 restrictions on social gatherings.
​
Let There Be (2021):
An online poetry writing project with UASC young people in partnership with Derbyshire Virtual School, giving participants the opportunity to develop creative writing skills through writing poetry inspired by the work of Lemn Sissay. Participants will contribute to a shared group work and create individual poems to be collected in an anthology and shared through an online platform.
​
College of the Imagination:
Giving young people the opportunity to expand their imagination and develop their skills through specifically focused individual and group programmes - turning creative ideas and aspirations into projects and artistic products.
Currently within the College of the Imagination a UASC young person is creating his first film, working on all aspects of fund-raising, script-writing, building the team, rehearsing, performing, pre- and post-production (including editing) to make a film based on lived experience, and work towards realising his dream of a career in the film industry.
​
Creative contemporary dance classes for young people:
​
Moving Experience (1991 - present)
Weekly creative contemporary dance classes for young people from toddlers through to young adults. Developing creativity, imaginative exploration, dance technique, and improvisation / choreography skills in young people.
Dance performance work with young people exploring well-being and social issues:
Giving young people the opportunity to develop their contemporary dance skills, including improvisation and choreography whilst exploring social and cultural ideas and themes of relevance and interest to them.
(For more detailed information visit the Wirksworth INdependDANCE page).
​
Example of most recent Wirksworth INdependDANCE work:
A Letter to Alice (2019)
Exploring experience of and attitudes to teenage mental health issues. Performed at Greenside Venues, Edinburgh Fringe ’19, Wirksworth Festival ’19. Two outstanding reviews, including Dancing Times “best youth production of the Fringe”
The Romeo and Juliet Project film (2017 - 18)
Collaboratively created dance theatre film, exploring issues of homophobia and cyber-bullying, Shown Wirksworth Festival 2018, Derbyshire Constabulary Hate Crime Awareness Week 2018
Human Kind (2015 - 16)
Workshop and performance exploring issues around present day refugee crisis and their response to it. Performances by INdependDANCE at the International Youth Arts Festival, Kingston London 2016.
​
