Staffordshire
Staffordshire has enjoyed three years of partnership with Boys Dancing, giving opportunities to many boys around the county. Our piece 'Dark Water', one of six sections in The Quiet Man Suite, was a great success. It involved four Staffordshire schools with 75 boys aged from 9 to 16. The secondary schools were able to give the opportunity to boys who had encountered dance the previous year to build on their skills and explore what they can do in this creative medium. Entrust has worked alongside the choreographers to bring thought-provoking performances to new audiences. One of those new audiences was the Performing Arts Service itself, and this has inspired us to create the next project as a partnership of musicians and dancers.
Project Updates:
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Great 1st session in staffs for @BoysDancing lots of #jumping #falling #flying #catching and #sweat!!! Tomorrow brings crutches!
By @MarkWorthTweets
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The Apprentices learn Laban
Our team of 4 apprentices join us at Warwick Arts Centre this week, to undertake the next part of their training. Working with the brilliant Yael Owen-McKenna, they are doing a 2-day intensive on the work of Rudolf Laban in order to complete their Laban Guild Foundation Course throughout the Boys Dancing project. I popped in and snapped these pics as they did some beautiful and powerful improvisations.
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Video blog: Boys Dancing Staffordshire is go!
The sessions in Staffordshire are just about to begin. In this video blog, dance artists Mark Worth and Nick Smith introduce us to the theme of this year's work, which ties in with the centenary of WWI:
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Hello Frankie! Good news for Staffordshire
Our Boys Dancing team in Staffordshire has some good news - they've gained an apprentice! Our apprentices are usually younger lads at the beginning of their dance careers who work with the lead dance artists in coaching the boys and assisting with choreography. For the 2013-2014 project, the four apprentices will also receive some training and a qualification from Laban Guild.
What's even better for Staffordshire is that Frankie is a local lad - from Tamworth. Here's Frankie in his first session of Laban training (in the white) with Cletus, another Boys Dancing apprentice:
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Nearly there!
Rehearsals in Staffordshire haven't quite started yet, but plans are still afoot for the final performance. So we'll let you in on a little secret about that: the choreographers are planning to create something that will be linked to the First World War.
It's not the first time there's been a military connection with a Boys Dancing project. Way back in 2009 boys from Wyken Croft Primary School performed a piece called 'No Man's Land' as part of the Waste 'n' Space production. Have a look at the Gallery for images.
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“I know how difficult it is to set up projects like this in schools but the standard of what the boys were able to produce with the incredibly skilled teaching in short concentrated time was exceptional.”
Parent
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Hello new website!
The fact that you're reading this suggests that you have, in fact, discovered the latest bit of Boys Dancing news. Which is that we have a new website! We wanted to really be able to show off all the fantastic images and videos that have come out of the project over the past few years, so we've added the visuals to almost every page. We hope you agree, it really showcases the brilliant work done by the boys and the professional dancers over the last six years.
There's also the Gallery. Here we've started to collate pictures and videos from Boys Dancing activity past and present. It's not 100% complete at the moment, but we'll be adding more pictures and videos as we go along.
There's also the exciting 'Just Dance' section, which is specifically for boys: those who have and who are taking part in the project. Or are maybe just interested in dance. Here you'll find some videos of male dancers if you're after a bit of inspiration, or some Spotify playlists to get you in the mood for shaking your funky stuff.
There's space to comment on Just Dance (or on the blog), so if you've got any suggestions as to other things you'd like to see there, please get in touch.
We hope you enjoy the new site. Have a look round, make yourself at home.