Dance Woking invites Dance Schools to join us at one of the following events where we will be producing a series of dance performance opportunities:

Sunday 2 June – Stanwell Multicultural Fun Day, 11am – 6pm

Long Lane Recreational Ground, Stanwell

For More information follow the link HERE

Saturday 22 June, Encounters, Jubilee Square, Woking Town Centre

Dance Woking celebrates 30 years of dance inspired activities in Woking

For more information follow the link HERE

Saturday 13 July, Lakeview Fun Day, Hartshill Walk, Woking

For more information follow the link HERE

Yolanda Newsome from Boy Blue led an inspiring workshop at Dance Woking’s SLAM on 25 March

The workshop was fully booked with dancers from three of the dance schools taking part in the dance platform, Alexandra Dance Company, Dance Phaze and LDA.

Taking place on the Rhoda McGaw Theatre stage Yolanda led the dancers through a typical Boy Blue workshop with some signature movement as well as teaching Boy Blue repertoire. The workshop was very well received with the dancers enjoying the opportunity to learn new skills as well as experience an enjoyable workshop with such an inspiring Dance Artist.

Dance Woking’s Easter Club provides a great way for children to have fun, make new friends, eat well and get creative. Suitable for children in Primary years 4 to 6; aged 8 to 11 years.

Mon 8, Tues 9 April &
Wed 10 & Thus 11 April
9.30am – 2.30pm

The Maybury Centre, Board School Road, Woking, GU21 5HD

Monday 8 & Tuesday 9 April – this two-day club will use The Greatest Showman as our theme.

Wednesday 10 & Thursday 11 April – this two-day club will use a West End Musical as our theme

Our experienced and friendly team will lead a range of activities including creative dance, arts and crafts. There will be a creative food session during the two days, wellbeing activities and lots of fun games. The club encourages children to find new ways of expressing themselves. Lunch will be provided, special dietary requirements can be catered for.

The club is open to all dance levels and abilities. Where applicable, children will be split by age.

We have a safe and secure site suitable for children with additional needs and disabilities. Please provide as much detail as possible on your booking form so we can do our best to support your child at camp. e.g. hearing impairment, autism, mental health needs. If your child has a higher staff ratio support at school, please let us know so we can ensure we have the correct staffing ratios at camp. Unfortunately we are unable to provide 1 to 1 support or specialist support. We are not a specialist SEN provider.

To book click HERE

Dance Woking is pleased to announce that Yolanda Newsome from BoyBlue will be making an appearance at both Woking SLAM & Surrey Schools SLAM. On Sunday 24 March, Yolanda will be leading a special BoyBlue workshop for dancers taking part in the platform. This is a great opportunity for the dancers to work with a highly regarded and talented dancer and teacher.

On Tuesday 26 March, Yolanda is back to perform a demo on stage at Surrey Schools SLAM, helping to inspire a new generation of dancers. We can’t wait to welcome Yolanda to Woking.

To find out more and purchase tickets: CLICK HERE

About Yolanda Newsome: began her dance career at IRIE! dance theatre, Britain’s leading dance theatre company working in the field of African & Caribbean dance fusion. Yolanda studied Contemporary, Ballet, African and Caribbean Dance. Specialising in Hip Hop Foundation and Waackin

Following 13 years’ experience training under BoyBlue Ent she was promoted to their Teaching Faculty developing roles as Rehearsals Director, Teaching Assistant and Assistant Choreographer. Transitioning her skills to lecturing at Trinity Laban on the Centre for Advanced Training Programme

Performance credit; GOT TO DANCE Semi Finalist 2010; STREET DANCE MOVIE 3D; THANKS TIM (2012 London Olympics); SAN FRANCISCO HIP HOP FESTIVAL; LEGACY: THE RETURN, BREAKIN CONVENTION Apollo Theatre New York), Nike, An Night With BoyBlue, Boadicea Bahrain, EuroVision Opening Liverpool, MOBO Awards, Latitude & Wilderness Festival , BBC TV Series- MOOD, Nostos Festival (Athens) and most recent Manchester “Free Your Mind” Matrix at the Factory International

Creative credits; PROJECT REBEL Edinburgh International Festival, Guys and Dolls (Talawa Theatre Company), An Night with BoyBlue (Barbican Theatre), Walk with Amaal, Queens Platinum Jubilee.

Artist Credits; Sugababes, Dizzee Rascal, Giggs, Emeli Sande, Roxanne, Jesy Nelson, Black Sherif, Alexandra Burke.  

Photo Credit. GaryShane.photography

Tickets are on sale now!

Sunday 24 March, 7.30pm, Woking SLAM

For more information click HERE

Dance Woking is delighted to announce Dance Schools taking part include:

BKD Performers Junior & Senior Crews, LDA Dance XL & XLNC, Betty Bloom Dance, Urban Dance School, Holly School of Dance, Movement Momentum from Dance Phaze, DancAYers Company, Alexandra Dance Company

Tuesday 26 March, Surrey Schools SLAM

For more information click HERE

Schools & guest groups taking part include:

The Park School, Beaufort Primary School, Westfield Primary School, Artemis College, Vital Signz, Stage Coach Woking, Trumps Green Infants School

Dance Woking is delighted to be able to include DAZZLE DAY enrichment activity to our cross-curricular outreach provision this summer in local schools. Now taking bookings for the period April to June 2024.

Dazzle Days are an ideal enrichment day activity, end of year celebration or a creative approach to curriculum learning. 

The workshop days can involve multiple groups or classes, all participating in short workshops based on a dance style of the school’s choice.

Dance Woking workshops aim to provide the following for your students:

• Teach them new skills and ways of moving, using choreography and teamwork
• Allow them to discover, share and gain insight into physical learning and creative approaches to topics and themes
• Engage young people into the creative arts through dance
• Widen access to all dance genres

For more details visit Dazzle Days

Innovate Dance Platform brought together Dance Schools from across the county together to showcase their best work. The dance schools share a mix of works including more festive pieces as we headed towards Christmas. 122 dancers took to the stage from twelve groups including First Dance Studios, Zambesi Dance Company, Cremona School of Dance, Alexandra Dance Company, Dance Shack and Betty Bloom Dance Company.

Woking dancers took to the stage as Dance Woking ended 2023 on a high note despite a 100% cut of their regular funding by Woking Borough Council in September.

November 2023 saw Dance Woking host its annual series of platforms, where 294 dancers took to Rhoda McGaw Theatre stage from 32 different dance and school groups. The platform series included Young Dance Makers for schools & colleges; Step UP a new platform presenting a highly eclectic mix of dance styles and Innovate, a contemporary led dance platform.

This series was hosted by Dance Woking, supported by Arts Council England; to enable local dancers platform opportunities to showcase their work.  

Ten local schools from across Woking and Surrey took part in Young Dance Makers Platform, the stimulus Recycle, Renew & Reuse which focused on the environment and sustainability to create imaginative and dynamic dance pieces that linked with issues affecting the world around us. School groups, created their work in after school clubs working with a Dance Woking artist over a period of 8 weeks. With over 111 students taking part from nine schools: Horsell Village School, New Monument Primary Academy, Westfield Primary School, Beaufort Primary School, Frogmore College alongside guest groups from Woking College, Guildford College, Kings International College and Ibstock Place School.

Highlights included Horsell Village School with ‘My Heart was a Tree’, the group used Michael Morpurgo’s Poem Driftwood as their stimulus looking at the life cycle and uses of a tree. New Monument Primary Academy performed a piece ‘Where do the toys go’ as they explored the unloved, broken and old toys. Beaufort Primary School’s piece Weather Storm explored extreme weather caused by climate change. Guildford College explored the theme of recycling passing hand-me- downs between siblings. Westfield Primary School explored recycling, this time taking steps from the 1950’s and 1920’s called ‘Recycling the ages’, supported by Woking College’s Dance Leaders throughout the process. Woking College closed the show with their piece ‘Reflecting thinking’, Year 13 dancers used work with Rhythmic Collision to create ‘Man in the Mirror’ which included signing within the piece.

Step UP dance platform brought different dance genres together. The performance pieces were both joyous and diverse with some great tunes from well-known musicals, to classical, pop to original live music. We were delighted to be able to showcase a new piece by Jane Chan who has been developing her own creative practice supported by Amina Khayyam Dance, accompanied by live music from International tabla player Debasish Mukherjee and in complete contrast, Diana Towe, a local dancer who hailed from Dance Woking’s Youth group Evolve and recently gaining the 2023 World Tap Solo Championship title. 61 dancers took to the stage from 10 different dance groups including Leanne Edwards School of dance (LESTA), Cremona School of Dance, Kidz Got Talent and Chinese Association of Woking who performed A Drop of Heaven.

Innovate Dance Platform brought together Dance Schools from across the county together to showcase their best work. The dance schools share a mix of works including more festive pieces as we headed towards Christmas. 122 dancers took to the stage from twelve groups including First dance studios, Zambesi dance company, Cremona School of dance, Alexandra Dance Company, Dance Shack and Betty Bloom Dance Company.

Dance Woking’s Artistic Director, Sam McCaffrey said, ‘as I reflect on the final months of 2023 I am very proud of how Dance Woking has used dance to change lives and navigate through a difficult year. From presenting platform opportunities, a tour to over 65’s, to a holiday club for children aged 7 to 11 years. I was really inspired by the work presented at the three different dance platforms we produced in November by the dance groups. Dance is so diverse and enables truly imaginative, creative, expression, which we encourage as part of our teaching process. The opportunity to produce these platforms has been an honour and one that I hope we will be able to continue, despite a very challenging environment for us as an organisation. It amazes me how the dancers are able to come together and perform their best in front of family and friends, hold their nerves in check and use this energy to positive advantage in their performance and shine. The Young dancemakers platform introduced children to the stage for the first time, helping to build their self-esteem, confidence, encouraged by peer to peer support. The Step Up platform presented an opportunity for Jane Chan, a dancer with Amina Khayyam’s Dance Company, to present her own work to a new audience.  It was also an opportunity to celebrate Diana Towe’s world tap success. Innovate Dance Platform, started twelve years ago, providing opportunities for aspiring dancers to showcase their work, and continues to grow from strength to strength, it once again didn’t fail to delight and surprise a packed theatre. Following the platforms Dance Woking went on tour to eight-care homes reaching 140 people with a Christmas Social tea dance tour supported by Surrey Community Foundation. The week before Christmas we ran a holiday club for children aged 7 to 11 years supported by Active Surrey. I’m not sure what 2024 will hold as we celebrate 30 years of dance Woking. We are open to and seeking new partnerships as we pursue new opportunities for the year ahead, if you’d like to get in touch please contact us through our website www.dancewoking.com’ 

Dance Woking is a charity, based in Woking that uses dance in all its forms to bring communities together through extensive education and outreach delivery through their Inspire programme. As the organisation heads into a 30-year legacy of dance centered creative experiences, the organisation faces its greatest challenge to date. The withdrawal of grant funding from Woking Borough Council has left the organisation in a perilous financial situation and facing an uncertain future. We are looking for new partners.

Dance Woking is a charity, changing lives through dance

Since 1994 Dance Woking has been proud of the impact it has had on Woking residents and more widely key partners in Surrey. In the past 12 months 3796 individuals took part in a Dance Woking workshop, leading to 7055 unique engagements. A total of 66 groups including after school clubs and community based dance groups took part in one of our platforms.

Dance Woking employed 148 Freelance Creatives/pro dancers to help deliver our programme of activities; creating 494 employment days for dance artists, dance companies, technicians employed to deliver our activities/events. 


Supporting place-making, the local economy and health & wellbeing.

If you know of anyone who may be interested in helping us please get in touch: CONTACT US

Diana Towe, competed in this years World Tap Championship for Great Britain in September 2023, which took place in Riesa, Germany. On winning the solo World Championship title this September Diana shared her experience with us:

‘I successfully continued through the Quarter & Semi finals & managed to reach the final 6 competitors and to top it all off struck GOLD quite literally and gained my title as Adult Solo Female World Champion 2023! It was an overwhelming feeling & I’m extremely proud that I could compete for my country and be SO successful! I hope everyone enjoys my performance‘. 

Diana will be performing her world championship piece on Thursday 30 November at Dance Woking’s NEW platform StepUP at Rhoda McGaw Theatre. For more details and tickets click HERE

Sam McCaffrey CEO/Artistic Director, Dance Woking, ‘What a privilege it has been for me to see Diana, who we first met as a talented and promising young dancer during one of our Evolve Youth camps, quite some years ago now, become a World Tap Champion. I can’t wait to see her perform on 30 November. It’s quite special for us to have a dancer like Diana support this new platform and inspire the next generation of dancers.’

Diana’s contemporary work is being presented at Dance woking’s Innovate Platform on Saturday 2 December, where she has been leading a contemporary dance group at First Dance Studios in Woking. For more information and tickets click HERE

About Diana:

Diana is a passionate and versatile dancer and teacher who has a wealth of experience in various dance styles including Tap, Modern, Ballet and Musical Theatre. Since graduating from PPA in Guildford in 2017, she has been a 7 times world champion with the Tap Attack Company and is now part of the faculty. She graduated from Italia Conti Dance School and continues to work on her dance career as an exceptionally talented dancer.

Diana takes pride in achieving and maintaining consistently high standards in all that she does and as well being a pro dancer she is also part of the Dance Woking’s Outreach Team sharing her knowledge and inspiring the next generation of dancers.

Diana has been involved in Dance Woking’s as a young dancer being part of Dance Woking’s highly acclaimed Evolve Youth Dance Company working with professional companies including ZoieLogic Dance Theatre, Tavaziva Dance, Jasmin Vardimon Dance

Dance Woking, along with an enthusiastic audience, sought answers from Akademi Dance’s family show ‘Plastic Drastic Fantastic’ with the company performing this highly engaging and imaginative show at Buzz Studio Theatre, Woking on 31 October & 1 November. The performance focussed on the amazing benefits the world has had from plastics and its use in everyday items that we now take for granted. However this was balanced against the drastic impact plastics have had on our environment, marine life and wildlife.

The highlight, Wednesday 1 November, a full action packed day of workshops and performance. The morning started with a CPD session led by Akademi Dance where Dance Woking’s outreach team were put through their paces with a professional level Bharatanatyam workshop.

This was followed by children from Kingfield Primary school year 6, taking part in a preshow workshop, the children learnt South Asian hand gestures and movement from the show.

Following a lunch break and a reset of the theatre, Akademi Dance performed Plastic Drastic Fantastic. The audience was highly focussed and engaged. Taking their inspiration from David Attenborough’s Planet Earth III series the company enacted a scene from this series highlighting the negative impact of plastic pollution on the ocean’s wildlife. Suba Subramaniam (CEO & Artistic Director Akademi) who led the Q&A after the performances urged the audience to watch the series and see for themselves. And to encourage young creatives to use dance movement to highlight issues that are important to them.

Feedback form children included:

‘I need to reuse plastic more’, ‘it makes me worry’, ‘it’s made me confused’

Dance Woking received funding from Arts Council England’s project grant scheme to use dance to focus on the human condition and raise awareness of sociopolitical and environmental issues. Dance Woking has been greatly impacted by Woking Borough Council funding cuts and support from Arts Council England has meant the organisation has been able to continue to use dance to support improved health and wellbeing. Akademi’s family show was part of this project and programmed to compliment Dance Woking’s stimulus Reduce, Reuse, Recycle for Platform week at the end of November.

Platform week starts on Tuesday 28 November at Rhoda McGaw Theatre with Dance Woking’s Young Dancemakers Platform. Local schools and colleges are finalising their dances as they prepare to take to the stage. The platform is an opportunity for children and young people to experience what it’s like to perform in a professional theatre. Alongside this the benefits are immense from give building self esteem and confidence, peer to peer support, mutual support, building communities and learning from each other.

Following them is Step Up, on Thursday 30 November, a new platform featuring dance styles that follow steps! We have an eclectic mix of styles and groups which include 2023’s World Tap champion, Diana Towe. More details to follow.

Dance Woking’s highly popular Innovate Community Dance Platform closes the week on Saturday 2 December. Tickets are available from ATG box office: HERE