Flying high in London

Over the last two weeks I have been rehearsing a solo piece to be performed at the Liberty Festival in London. Although I've been performing with Blue Eyed Soul for many years now, Sugar is my first aerial performance. I've always found the harnesses difficult to work with, but our artistic Rachel Freeman has been very clever to invent a mechanism whereby I can fly whilst seated in my wheelchair. It's a much more comfortable environment for me.

Sugar is going to be performed at the festival along side our trio TAKE; a dance in the park, and Now Now another solo performed by Jodie Gorle who is a dancer from Hereford we have been working with.

During the first week of rehearsing it took me a good while to find my aerial stomach. The piece requires me to be suspended quite high up whilst moving backwards and forwards round and around. It has required a lot of trust on my part, but now the piece is made I am more confident.

I am delighted to be performing Sugar as I did not think it possible for me to fly. In particular I am thrilled to be performing in London..in Trafalgar Square too!!! EEEK!! I'm also very excited about my character within the piece as she is a very naughty seductive little madam. My costume is a very revealing black velvet dress with fishnet tights. All of this is such a departure from my normal character and it is so much fun.

I will be travelling to London with Miriam Keye, who is joining us as Education and Training Co-ordinator covering Rachel Liggitt's maternity leave. She is taking the role of my support worker for the day. I think this will be a wonderful opportunity for us to get to know each other as we will be working quite closely together over the next few months. Im very excited about working with Miriam - it will be a good way of developing my skills as a workshop facilitator and learning different approaches.

Over the bank holiday i will be listening to my piece of music for Sugar on Spotify and rehearsing in my living room as much as possible. Next time I write I will let you all know about my exciting and SWEET adventure to London....watch this space.xx

And after Sepia...

Well, we've enjoyed blogging about our small festival of dance Sepia so much, that it's fitting we continue. So you may notice I've renamed the blog to our Company name now.

Meanwhile TAKE; a dance in the park continues touring to Avenhan Park in Preston and Williamson Park Lancaster for the bank holiday weekend D.verCity Festival , London's Trafalgar Square for the Liberty Festival (with two new solo pieces Now Now & Sugar!) on Saturday 5th September, and Craven Arms Community Garden on Saturday 12th September for 'The World's Biggest Gallery'.

For all of you who said 'I want a go!' at the Shrewsbury Quarry performance, this is your chance, with 'learn to fly' workshops scheduled for them all.

And we commence our inclusive adult dance class Contact 7th - 21st September, with Miriam Keye and Sally Edwards leading, under the theme of 'Introductions'. There will be a performance at our AGM this year.

Who are you when you dance?
What brought you to dance?
What does it feel like when you dance?
A chance to celebrate your own unique relationship with dance.

We're looking for more non-disabled dancers to reach our aim of a balance of 50/50 disabled and non-disabled. If you're interested get in touch!

Information on all the above can be found on the events page of our website.

And finally, we're all very excited at our first Blue Eyed Soul baby little Ned, courtesy of Education and Training co-ordinator Rachel Liggitt. Before we know it he'll be on the dance floor...