Category: News

In the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, artists and organisations across our region have adapted how they bring their work to us. Here is a snapshot and celebration of some of the fantastic work happening online and in person in Leeds and the surrounding areas, and how you can get involved.

From online and socially distanced classes, to podcasts and digital performances, there is plenty of activity happening across our region in lockdown.

Northern School of Contemporary Dance

Northern School of Contemporary Dance have launched online community classes for people of all ages and abilities, including Children’s Classes (5-12 years), Youth Classes (12-18 years) and Adult Classes (Improvers/Advanced Technique and Choreography & Performance), so now you don’t have to leave your home to access their world-class training. 

Yorkshire Dance

Yorkshire Dance are delivering a range of dance activities that you can get involved with from home. From creating your very own screen dance in the FRESH Challenge, to online classes for the over 55s (Dance On) and families (Saturday Superstars) there’s lots to choose from.

Yorkshire Dance’s Leaps and Bounds tutors have also been hard at work creating a four part series exploring the natural world and universe. Follow along with these inclusive videos to learn how to create your own improvised routine.

Northern Ballet

Northern Ballet have continued to deliver weekly sessions for their Ability, In Motion and Dance for Parkinson’s groups online during lockdown. The Academy of Northern Ballet have also been releasing free ballet training videos on their Facebook page weekly.

If you’re looking to get your ballet fix whilst theatres are closed, the Company has also released some of their work digitally as part of their Pay as You Feel Digital Season. This has included: new digital dance film EGO (created before lockdown); short ballet For an Instant; Dracula and Little Red Riding Hood available on BBC iPlayer; and excerpts from new ballet Geisha and their 50th Anniversary Celebration Gala.

Leeds Playhouse

During lockdown, core partner Leeds Playhouse have hosted regular Zoom sessions, making phone calls and sending resources to: People Living with Dementia; young people with learning disabilities and their families; refugees and asylum seekers; young people attending alternative education; and schools.

The Playhouse has delivered over 200 lockdown creative craft activities and interactive storytelling videos for their female refugee choir Asmarina Voices to share with their children, plus video resources sent to partner schools and over 100 calls to participants.

Dance Action Zone Leeds (DAZL)

DAZL have continued to focus on improving the mental and physical wellbeing of young people in Leeds throughout lockdown through many different initiatives.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, DAZL are offering free 30 minute Facebook Live and Zoom dance classes with dance artist Mason Jubb, plus an online 10 week dance fitness programme for families. Find out more.

They have also been leading on GARDEN Groovers, a socially distanced doorstep dance programme funded by Leeds Inspired, Leeds Public Health and Leeds Community Foundation as a complementary offer to DAZL’s Food Bank and distribution work. GARDEN Groovers reaches communities across the city and is being replicated in four primary schools.

RJC Dance

RJC Dance have continued to provide online classes for their students, available on their YouTube channel. They have also put together this fantastic video, Where U R, featuring teachers and students dancing in lockdown.

South Asian Arts-uk

South Asian Arts-uk have created the Generation 21 podcast, a series of thought-provoking interviews sharing questions and answers on the classical Indian music and dance industry. The first six episodes are available to download from all major podcast apps.

Mind the Gap

Our neighbours in Bradford Mind the Gap have created
Humans of MTG, an online campaign celebrating the people they have worked with over the past few years and beyond inspired by the Twitter account Humans of Theatre.

Balbir Singh Dance Co 

Balbir Singh Dance Company are currently running online classes bringing classical Indian dance, ballet and other dance styles to you from the comfort of your living room.

COVID-19’s impact on the partners, individuals and businesses we work with is rapidly changing and we are working in accordance with the ongoing advice from Public Health England.

Download a comprehensive guide to support during the Covid-19 outbreak here.

Access additional information on the below links 

• Arts Council England  
• Creative England 
• One Dance UK 
• Arts Marketing Association 
• Grantfinder 
• UK Theatre  
• Creative Access  
• Disability Arts Online  
• Jerwood Arts

Last updated 11:58 Friday 10 July 2020

We’re pleased to announce that Leeds Dance Partnership has joined National Dance Network, a meeting point of organisations whose role is to support the development of dance in the UK. 

National Dance Network (NDN) champions the creation, development and presentation of dance as a contemporary art form within a UK and international context. 

Chaired by an Independent Chair Gregory Nash, NDN work together to achieve a thriving, risk taking and confident dance sector in Britain, where UK based dance artists can research, create and present world-class work nationally and internationally. The membership meetings function as a forum for update, debate and exploration around key concerns. 
 
NDN’s current objectives are to: 

• Provide opportunities to support the development of the artform and of its practitioners 
•  Take opportunities to advocate and champion on behalf of the dance sector 
•  Take opportunities to collaborate and share best practice 

Other members of NDN include:

• Akademi
• Dance Umbrella
• Dance4
• DanceXchange
• East London Dance
• Greenwich Dance
• Merseyside Dance Initiative
• One Dance UK
• The Place
• The Point, Eastleigh
• The Royal Ballet
• Sadler’s Wells
• South East Dance
• Swindon Dance
• The Work Room
• Yorkshire Dance
• Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance

From 29 February – 1 March, Yorkshire Dance will present Family Encounters, in association with Leeds Dance Partnership.

We’re proud to be supporting four events in this exciting dance festival which will explore play between children and their grown-ups. All of the events at Family Encounters are pay as you feel.

To the Beat of a Different Drum by TC Howard

To the Beat of a Different Drum is an unexpected meeting of worlds as young people and elders meet – chiming to the beat of a different drum.

Find out more

Des Gestes Blancs – Gestures on a Blank Slate

Des Gestes Blancs – Gestures on a Blank Slate is a father and son duo based on improvisation and play. Cheerful and touching, these gestures will connect you with your inner child.

Find out more

MaPPAMoNDO by Dadodans – Gaia Gonnelli

MaPPAMoNDO is a musical and imaginative performance for children from two years up. Using sand, earth, stones and musical instruments, a dancer and a musician create their own world full of colours and sounds.

Find out more

Touch by Four Hands

Touch explores the themes of connection, intimacy and physical play between parents and their children, with a cast of two professional performers dancing with their own children, and a community cast of families from the local area. Touch will also be performed at The Holbeck on 7 March.

​Find out more

Discover the full Family Encounters programme on the Yorkshire Dance website.

Please note: please purchase tickets to reflect the number of persons attending the performance, including tickets for those who might be supervising a young child.

Light Night Leeds 2019 was bigger than ever with over 60 events lighting up the city. This year we were proud to support the interactive installation and performances of Alexander Whitley Dance Company’s Strange Stranger as part of the event.

There was a great atmosphere with all of the performances fully sold out and great feedback from audiences.

‘The energy and control of the performers was amazing, thank you for letting us share it’

‘Utterly absorbing, innovative and interesting’

‘I found the performance extremely thought-provoking and very well done indeed. Thank you, it’s given me food for thought.’

Nearby, partner organisation Leeds Playhouse presented light installation A Beacon of Happiness plus an epic game of simon says.

As ever we had a fantastic Light Night and we’re already counting down the days until next year!

Last month we hosted our first ever Artist Fellowships Sharing, where our four artists Hannah Buckley, Vanessa Grasse, Lucy Suggate and Jamaal Burkmar presented the creative explorations they developed through the Leeds Dance Partnership Artist Fellowships scheme.

As part of the scheme, independent dance artists are paired with a host organisation to create a response to a creative brief that generates new learning and mutual benefit across the partnership and their audiences, students, participants and stakeholders. Artists receive a fee, a training budget for their development and a bespoke offer of support throughout their fellowship from their host organisation and other partners.

This packed sharing event saw an audience of people from across the dance industry come together and discover more about what each artist had been working on and the development they had undergone throughout the scheme.

Introduced by their host organisations – Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Leeds Beckett University, Yorkshire Dance and Phoenix Dance Theatre, the artists presented their work in a variety of different ways, including a presentation, the creation of short video, an interactive silent disco-esque presentation and a short dance piece.

Find out more about the Artist Fellowships scheme

Photos David Lindsay