DIANA project – Dancing in Aston & Newtown with ACE dance and music
This project was completed during 2017 – 18 and involved Moving Souls Dance as evaluators and project support to ACEDM education team to develop their skills in leading educational six week intensives. Gail Parmel supervised the teaching team which involved 2 dancers (Iona Waite & Chris ?) with other freelance dance artists teaching over 350 children aged 7 – 10 years in 6 Primary schools in Aston & Newtown. This programme funded by Birmingham City Council allowed ACE to develop their teaching skills over a longer period of time, allowed the dancers to expand their concept of a class structure that involved travelling, development of creative ideas and learning a group composition to perform at the end of the intensive.
The results were impressive, teachers loved the work and saw the improvement of skill, confidence and behaviour from all involved, students loved the dancing skills they gained and enjoyed performing together, the parents enjoyed seeing their children learn and perform to them at the end of each intensive. The sad truth is that very few schools can afford the time, the fees required to pay a company to take on intervention in a school, so we were privileged to do this and take away important lessons to apply at the next educational project.
