We had so much fun dancing along the streets of Chapeltown Leeds for the 50th Anniversary Leeds Carnival, with a large Festival parade of over 35 different troupes, seen by 80,000 audience. As it was our first carnival parade, Nicholas & I were very impressed by the range, style and professional quality to the dancing troupes. We danced with our troupe in brilliant sunshine for four hours – along with the youngest who was 6 years old who kept up with us all the way! We won first prize for the design of the costumes (designed by Kathi Leahy, Imagineer and made by ACEDM team), which was an accolade for the hours of work put into each and every costume!
We shared the procession with RJC Dance troupe from Leeds (see photo) and this meant sharing choreography, design and performance work. RJC dancers came to Birmingham to perform on the main Victoria Square and performed a new outdoor presentation piece RAGE with Ace Youth and adult classes – seen by over 1,000 audiences. This was an ambitious piece using live fire artistry choreographed by Wez Guren (Pyroproductionz) and performed by youth and adult ACE dancers. The development and integration of fire and circus artistry was made possible by another ACE grant to support this Circus Magic Residency. Moving Souls Dance were project fund holders for the ACE grant and undertook the evaluation and participated in learning the dances for the parade – so gained an insider’s view to the amount of time, skill and determination it take create and showcase 150 costumes in Carnival parades – it is not just the pretty costumes…its hard work to dance and you need stamina to keep up!
