Dance Woking is delighted to confirm receipt of a grant to support our Spring 2020 Programme from Arts Council England’s Project grants fund. Celebrating 25 years of dance in Woking the Spring Programme forms part of the festivities focusing on the different ways we engage with our audiences providing opportunities to watch, take part and perform in dance. The grant has enabled us to bring James Wilton Dance Company’s new piece The Storm to Woking; James’s piece provides a stimulus for our work with Boys and wellbeing; his work is of a very physical nature with highly energetic movement. James’s work also explores the effects of mental health, likened to that of a storm, this aligns well with our dance and resilience project. Partnering with the Youth Service in Woking & Surrey we are taking our Dance & Resilience pilot project to Woking High School with funding from Active Surrey.

Additional activity that this grant is supporting is Evolve Youth Dance, which sees us deliver 3 days of dance for young people 12 years and older, led by James Wilton Dance, providing a great opportunity for local aspiring young dancers to work with a professional company. The group will learn company technique and develop their choreographic skills working towards a curtain-raiser for James Wilton Dance Company’s The Storm on Tuesday 25 February.

As well as developing our relationship with James Wilton Dance we are pleased to start a new one with Oxford based dance and theatre company Justice in Motion. The company will be delivering 3 days of performance parkour over February half term at Sheerwater Youth Centre, this is a development opportunity and follows on from our weekly Thursday parkour sessions called Rotate Parkour at Addlestone and Sheerwater Youth Centres.

For further details about Dance Woking’s February activities and performance platforms please see our website.

Dance Woking started the New Year by welcoming professional choreographer James Wilton to Woking.

A company member led a professional dance class for Dance Woking’s team of freelance dance teachers; the team were taught classic company movement by company dancer Sean as well as showing share some of Jame’s signature movement linked to his new work ‘The Storm’. The team are now working in various schools in Woking with groups working towards pieces to perform at Woking SLAM on Sat 29 February and the Boys Platform on Thursday 12 March.

James Wilton is quickly becoming known as one of the UK’s leading choreographers, renowned for creating breathtakingly physical choreography. Since forming his company, James Wilton Dance has toured extensively both in the UK and Internationally to critical acclaim, winning numerous awards including The Sadler’s Wells Global Dance Contest, 3rd Prize at The International Choreographers Competition in Hannover ( 2012), winner of the Audience Prize at 16Masdanza, 3rd Prize at The Berner Tanzprize.

Wilton has also choreographed and restaged works on many other leading companies, including Scottish Dance Theatre, Ballet Hagen, Oper Graz, Stadttheater Geissen, Konzert Theatre Bern and Tanztheater Münster. As well as choreographing for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Rugby League World Cup 2013. James is an associate artist at The Hall for Cornwall, Truro. JWD have an incredible output of education work, reaching over 3,000 people in the past 12 months alone.

Dance Woking is looking for volunteers to help support our very exciting 25 Anniversary Year, and help us deliver our 2020 programme of events in Woking.

Dance Woking manages various dance events throughout the year, both indoors and outdoors, and we couldn’t do it without the enthusiasm and dedication of the volunteers who give up their time towards making our events run smoothly. Following a very successful Winter Shorts Programme we are now seeking volunteer support for our Spring and Summer programmes. If you are interested in discovering how volunteering can help widen your own experience and CPD opportunities please contact the office for further details.

To see our available opportunities please download Dance Woking Volunteer Pack 2020

For all our volunteering opportunities please contact Ellie Dowling and fill in Dance Woking Volunteer Application Form 2020

e-mail: office@dancewoking.com, Tel: 01483 495460, by post Ellie Dowling, Dance Woking, Pearl Assurance House, 28 High Street, Woking, GU21 6BW

We are delighted to share an amazing achievement for one of our projects in collaboration with Woking Youth Service. Sandie Bolger, Youth Development Officer at Woking Borough Council who works at Sheerwater Youth Centre was nominated for Active Surrey Community Project of the Year at the Sport Woking Awards 2019 in response to Rotate, the weekly Parkour Sessions held on Thursdays at Sheerwater Youth Centre. This project is run in partnership with Dance Woking. Sandie has encouraged some of the young people who attend the centre to volunteer and support Rotate as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award. We are very proud of this recognition. In order to run this project funding support was received from Active Surrey, Surrey Community Foundation and Woking Borough Council.

If you are interested in supporting similar projects please do contact us on office@dancewoking.com. We are keen to develop new partnerships in order to continue to offer creative ways to support community cohesion through active engagement of young people.

We would like to thank you Woking Youth Service and Sheerwater Youth Centre for their support in delivering this amazing project. Congratulations to all winners and shortlisted nominees. Please see below the full article about Sport Woking Awards 2019.

https://woking.gov.uk/leisure-and-culture/sports-activities-and-facilities/sport-woking-awards-2019

Please note that Rotate Parkour Sessions are back on Thursday 16th of January.

For details click here