Boys Dancing

Our new project to engage boys and young men with dance is up, running and more ambitious than ever! Building on all our previous boys dance work, we have begun a three year programme of activity taking place across the West Midlands and commissioned by People Dancing (part of the West Midlands’ Culture Programme for London 2012).

Our aim is to encourage hundreds of boys and young men to experience the challenge, exhilaration, discipline and fun of making and sharing dance. Dance-making will happen in schools, youth centres, PRUs and found spaces and will result in performances in theatres and schools, site specific work, dance films and, I’m sure, some surprises.

So the work has already started – with a dance summer school in Henley in Arden. A group of young men from Henley in Arden High School joined Dave McKenna from Being Frank Physical Theatre and their teacher Fiona Kirk to make a dance film using a found location in Henley. Choreographic work began in school, a location was hunted and found (Henley’s medieval Guild Hall), the dance piece finalised in school and the Guild Hall and the film shot, in a day, on location. The final film, Reading The Space, can be viewed below, along with our ‘making of’ film, and is a great start to and inspiration for the rest of this year’s work.

Further Boys Dancing work has also continued with a week-long residency held in our new Creative Space, where 16 young men from across the sub-region worked with Liam Steel of Stan Won’t Dance and Kenny Baraka, an MC/lyricist. There are loads of pictures of the highly successful week in our gallery to the right and comments and video interviews from throughout the week on our blog. Here is both a 4 minute and 14 minute version of the exhilirating, energetic and very moving performance that was created and performed on the Friday.

Boys Dance residency with Liam Steel from David Mckenna on Vimeo.

Back in December, lads from Foxford School and Community Arts College had 5 days off timetable and spent the week at The Alan Higgs Centre in Coventry. With the help of Dave McKenna of Beingfrank Physical Theatre, they formulated their ideas, choreographed the dance moves and devised the storyline and locations, before working with professional film-maker Chris Bradley for 2 days to shoot each of the scenes several times!

The film has now been edited and a unique soundtrack has been specially created. Here is the final result of the lads hard work, their film a stranger to myself

a stranger to myself from Warwick Arts Centre on Vimeo.

Boys Dancing is a People Dancing programme, part of the West Midlands’ Culture Programme for London 2012 funded by Legacy Trust UK, Arts Council England West Midlands and Advantage West Midlands People Dancing uses the inspiration of the London 2012 Games to get as many people as possible dancing in the West Midlands.