Different pasts, shared futures

Supported by Big Lottery Awards for All, Dance Woking has been working with a number of community groups and schools to explore the idea of home. During the evening five of the groups shared their experiences using dance movement, art, film and food. The funding also enabled us to work with professional dance company Amina Khayyam Dance and share their work with a number of the community groups as well as being able to present an excerpt of their work this evening.

For  programme of evening click onto link: Programme

HORSELL BANGLADESHI WOMEN’S GROUP ‘Imparting Through Food’

Working with Amina Khayyam the group have used food to express their home. Taste some delicious homemade dishes made by the Horsell Bangladeshi Women’s group – an insight in to the women you see but perhaps do not know.

DEVYNE DANCERS ‘Searching through the borders’

Exploring the theme of ‘Where is Home?’, DeVyne Dancers have been looking at the obstacles that can be faced when searching for and building a home, moving around the key themes of border, travel and shelter.

LIAISE WOMEN’S CENTRE ART GROUP AT MAYBURY CENTRE ‘Our Colourful Shadows’

As we move, work exercise and dance, we produce shadows…. taking their frozen shadow images and putting them onto a canvas the women then filled their shadow with a collage of images exploring memories and ideas of ‘where is home?’

Artists: Talat, Rahat, Sandra, Shahida, Sadia, Samina, Balijeet, Dhanvir, Ishrat

Lead Artist: Maria Lima

BROCKHILL CREATIVE SEATED DANCE GROUP ‘Home’

Using memories to inspire movement sequences the Creative Seated Dance group have choreographed a dance film presenting their exploration of ‘Where is Home?’

Dancers: Gwen Hill, Kim Johnson, Derek Lane, Joan Malone, Zoe Nicholson, Jean Pitts, Dot Williams and members of Brockhill Creative Seated Dance

Filmmaker: Omari Carter ’The Motion Dance Collective’

Choreographer: Kate Finegan

For PREVIEW  https://youtu.be/UjVz-PyHbbM

MAYBURY PRIMARY SCHOOL ‘Building Homes’

Maybury have created a dance piece in their after-school club exploring the theme of finding and building a home, and working out what can make a house a home.

Dancers: Rishta, Ritika, Gabriella, Swasti, Palistha, Saniea, Simona, Ayesha, Hibba, Aroush, Saira

Choreographer: Emily Neighbour

Overview of the event report by That’s Surrey TV

This year we marks the 100 Anniversary of World War 1 and the Representation of the People’s Act

Party in the Park will be used as a platform to highlight these celebrations and showcase some of the community projects and activities that will focus on these significant milestone events, and encourage participation among Woking’s diverse communities, developing ‘pride of place’.

“Surrey in the Great War: A County Remembers” – The Surrey History Centre will be planning events to commemorate the centenary of the end of the World War II (1914-1918), to showcase the work they have been involved in and promote their website “Surrey in the Great War”. The website will continue to serve as a legacy of the 1914-1918 Commemorations. The key theme for Party in the Park will be around the World War One theme.

Dame Ethel Smyth was a long-term citizen of Woking who had an international reputation, and it is most appropriate that our town should seek to be proud of Smyth, and to celebrate her achievements alongside those of other notables such as H.G. Wells.

Smyth was a remarkable woman by any standards, first and foremost a composer but also an author, a sportswoman, a vigorous campaigner for recognition of women’s contribution to the arts, and for two years (1910 –1912) a leading suffragette. She was especially active in raising awareness of the status of women within the music profession, and her books as well as her correspondence, most of which were written whilst living in Woking, contain much forthright defence of this subject. She was one of the most famous conductors of the Woking Choral Society.

For more details go to: https://www.dancewoking.com/show/partyinthepark2018/

Overview of this years programme

See what we did last year:

Brockhill Creative Seated Dance Group have been working with dance artist Kate Finegan to create and present a film of their work titled Home at our event ‘Different Pasts, Shared Future’ in partnership with Woking Borough Council. The event is on Tuesday 19th June and is a cultural celebration for National Refugee Week that will feature a range of dance performances, film, art and food!

Brockhill is a unique housing scheme for the elderly based in Goldsworth Park and every Wednesday morning a truly wonderful group meet for Creative Seated Dance taught regularly by Kate. For the past six weeks the group have been focused on creating choreography and movement to present a film at the event.

‘We have been thinking of creative responses to the idea of ‘home’ with each member of the group contributing their own memories of home. These memories have been used as inspiration for choreographed sequences of movement by the storyteller, which has been taught to the group. We then culminated this project with a joyous morning of filming with Omari ’The motion dance collective’ Carter’ Kate Finegan

The film will be shown on Tuesday 19th June at ‘Different Pasts, Shared Future’. The group will continue to meet every Wednesday morning, and more information on Brockhill Centre and the weekly sessions with Kate can be found here!

Different Pasts, Shared Future
Tuesday 19th June, 6pm-8pm
H.G. Wells Conference & Events Centre

This event is FREE and open to all – more information here!

Encounters, Saturday 30 June 2018

Jubilee Square, Woking Town Centre, Woking, GU21 6YG

11am – 3pm

Hosted by Dance Woking, Encounters is an exciting taster event leading up to next Saturday’s Party in the Park, to delight shoppers and encourage attendance to Party in the Park on Saturday 7th July, taking place at Woking Park.

There are opportunities to take part, perform and watch.

This year we marks the 100 Anniversary of World War 1 and the Representation of the People’s Act

Party in the Park will be used as a platform to highlight these celebrations and showcase some of the community projects and activities that will focus on these significant milestone events, and encourage participation among Woking’s diverse communities, developing ‘pride of place’.

Come and see the different banners and sashes made by the dancers as we move through Woking town Centre; parade starts just outside woking hospice at 1.15pm

To find out more go to: https://www.dancewoking.com/show/encounters-2018/

To see what we did last year:

Dance Woking have been working with Horsell Bangladeshi Women’s Group over the last two months to work towards a presentation of food at our event ‘Different Pasts, Shared Future’ with Woking Council. The event is on Tuesday 19th June featuring a number of community groups and schools that Dance Woking has been working with in order to celebrate National Refugee Week!

The Bangaladeshi Women’s Group have been working with professional dance artist, Amina Khayyam, in weekly sessions with the theme of ‘home’. They will be using food to express their home, giving everyone the opportunity to taste some delicious homemade dishes at the event!

‘The group are very much enjoying the sessions and the class has been hugely popular. Every week the class has grown in size through word of mouth. The women have found the class to be physically beneficial, mentally stimulating and hugely fun!’ Amina Khayyam

The group have been working together with creative movement and discussion and has been so successful that it has been extended to be a 90 minute class! The group have had a break in classes during Ramadan, but will be meeting once more before they present their dishes at the event on the 19th June.

Different Pasts, Shared Future
Tuesday 19th June, 6pm-8pm
H.G. Wells Conference & Events Centre

This event is FREE and open to all – more information here!

Our fifth and final group presenting work at our event ‘Different Pasts, Shared Future’ in partnership with Woking Council is Liaise Women’s Centre Art Group based at the Maybury Centre. The group will be sharing artwork that they have produced with artist Maria Lima. ‘Different Pasts, Shared Future’ is a cultural celebration event for National Refugee Week on Tuesday 19th June, 6pm-8pm at H.G. Wells Events and Conference Centre in Woking.

Liaise is a women’s centre providing a safe and supportive environment for women to network, learn new skills and get advice and information on a range of issues. Dance Woking have been working with Liasie over six weeks, first in movement with Kate Finegan, and then creating art using the movement as their inspiration with Maria Lima.

‘The Liaise Women’s Art group spent a morning exploring creative ideas through movement, firstly thinking about their own journey, where they were born, where they went to school, when they were married, had children, moved country, which they transposed into a series of movements sequences, which were then photographed. Blowing up selected images onto cardboard to create a silhouette to be filled further with a visual arts response to their journey , photos maps, images, flowers telling each unique story.’ Kate Finegan

The large silhouette will be presented at ‘Different Pasts, Shared Future’ and members of Liaise will be there to talk about their experience of creating artwork from movement. The event is free and open to all, come and see some fantastic artwork, dance performance and film!

Find out more information about Liaise Women’s Centre here!

Different Pasts, Shared Future
Tuesday 19th June, 6pm-8pm
H.G. Wells Conference & Events Centre, Woking
FREE

Did you know that Dance Woking are community partners of National Citizen Service (NCS)?

NCS is a government-backed scheme, which aims to bring together young people aged 15-17 for a common purpose. Providing skills and tools for work life and the transition into work, groups from NCS work together and with local organisations to make a difference in their community.

As a community partner we have worked with many groups of young people over the years, giving them an insight into our charity and the work we do. In return, the groups we have worked with have been fantastic at fundraising for Dance Woking and supporting the work that we do.

In August we will welcome two groups of young people from NCS to meet and work with us for three days, in which they will plan, devise and implement a project to fundraise for Dance Woking with our support. We look forward to keeping you updated on our work with NCS groups and what we are able to achieve together this Summer!

Dance Woking is proud to be a community partner of NCS and look forward to working with the two groups in August!