Spring Forward
'Tis the season for Take Art Dance! We have had two amazing, sold out performances of Spring Forward at the Tacchi Morris Arts Centre in Taunton and the first one of two at the McMillan Theatre in Bridgwater. 491 dancers from 41 groups performed across the three shows delighting audiences, spreading the joy of dance, and inspiring all ages.
We've been absolutely amazed by the talent on display, with dancers showcasing a fantastic variety of styles—from Contemporary to Martial Arts and Acro and more to come in Bridgwater. Take a first look at these stunning images captured at the Tacchi-Morris Arts Centre by Len Copland!
We’re looking forward to our 20th Anniversary Gala evening on 27th April, where we’ll welcome back groups that have graced the Spring Forward stage over the years—including one that has returned year after year for nearly two decades! It promises to be a spectacular evening of dance, celebration, and nostalgia as we honor the journey of this incredible festival.
RTDI gets young people moving on mental health
In March, the Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI) welcomed Leeds-based contemporary dance company Northern Rascals to the South-West with their exciting blend of dance, projection and spoken word combined in their live performance Shed. They made special connections with communities of young people in Gloucester and Falmouth.
Shed is a dance theatre show performed inside an actual garden shed, made to look like the inside of someone’s flat! The dancers tell three short stories to an original soundtrack through live dance, and recorded spoken word, which is also projected onto the shed as captions. Imagine dance set to beautiful and moving poetry, club tunes that make you want to get up and join in, and poignant classical music. It’s really got a bit of everything.
Northern Rascals Director Anna Holmes says about rural touring:
“It’s just super exciting, the audiences are amazing!”
Anna Holmes, Northern Rascals Director
Shed also tackles some of the important and difficult life challenges that face young people, with the aim of raising awareness about the importance of young people’s mental health.
The show especially resonated with the audience in Falmouth, many of whom were students. These are experiences they might be having right now or anticipate in their near future. Older audience members also identified with memories the stories tapped into. The first time an old friend comes home from university, and you realise your relationship has changed, your first break-up, feeling threatened as a young woman alone and wondering what happened to the carefree girl you were once allowed to be.
Anna, who is also the Writer behind Shed’s beautiful spoken word elements, thinks dance is a great way to tackle difficult issues.
“We came from a place where dance could just be movement for movement’s sake but that wasn’t something that really interested us. For us it was how can we use dance as a tool to tackle things that are sensitive and important to us and the communities that we work with… how can we use dance as a tool of societal change?”
Anna Holmes, Northern Rascals Director
RTDI aims to work with the South-West touring schemes to create opportunities for rural communities and venues to really connect with the companies on tour. We have a budget for regional activities aimed at engaging children and young people, and we know how powerful dance and creativity can be in transforming lives.
In Gloucester, RTDI and Strike A Light were able to connect dancers with twenty-nine 13-15 years olds in two secondary schools for eight weeks before the performance there.
In Cornwall, RTDI, Carn to Cove and AMATA gave three emerging dance artists aged 18-30 the chance to work with the company for three full days before the show.
Both groups created curtain-raiser performances, which were staged to packed audiences in a double-bill with Shed.
Northern Rascals are no strangers to this approach.
“… the way that we create work is with the people that are around the area that the work is situated in. It was really interesting to ask how we then go touring and connect with people in a similar way especially when we’re maybe only there for one night. So this allowed us to see that these themes that have come from a place that is Northern-centric are actually nationally important.”
Northern Rascals
Seventeen young people from the two Gloucester schools involved performed at the GL1 Leisure Centre to an audience of over 90 people, both parents and members of the public who came to see Shed. The experience of performing alone can be a huge confidence boost to young people, and the opportunity to work with a professional company for this long is invaluable, whether those young people go on to pursue dance or something else.
Participants said:
“It’s a really cool opportunity to work with the company”
“It’s been a very relaxed, friendly and supportive environment”
For emerging dance artists in their early careers, opportunities like these that are close to home are so important.
“[Something I’ve loved is]… the chance to work with a touring company and ask them questions. Normally if you get a masterclass it would just be a couple of hours so being able to have a bit more time and go more in-depth with the work has been great.”
And in case you weren’t convinced on the power of dance to bring people together, our three Cornish dancers said:
“Dance can connect you so quickly with other people. Dancing and being free together bonds you so much quicker than you would in other spaces”
“We met yesterday but we’re really quite close in the way we’re working together!”
“We’ve all come with different knowledge, different experience and different interests but we have that shared language of dance.”
And in case you’ve never seen contemporary dance before and still need a little extra encouragement, they added:
“[Contemporary dance can be] … really fun, and very playful. Come with a completely open mind because maybe it’s not going to be what you think, it’s going to be so much more.”
Take Art is a leading partner of RTDI and employs South-West Regional Co-ordinator Beccy Lloyd. We’ll have lots more sensational dance engagement to report by the end of this touring season, and in the year to come so watch this space!