DanceSyndrome’s 2025 Highlights

As 2025 draws to a close, we are full of gratitude for a year of creativity, collaboration and memorable moments for the DanceSyndrome family. From powerful new performances to National partnerships and community connection, this year has reminded us why inclusive dance matters and how it transforms lives. Here are some of DanceSyndrome’s highlights from 2025.

Community Dance Showcases

Our Express ’25: Community Dance Showcase was a joyful celebration of our community work, with each group bringing something unique to the stage. A highlight was our DS Collective’s performance of their new piece A Dream of Keys, and they are already rehearsing for 2026.

iCreate ’25: A Choreographic Celebration

Inclusion in Action

In November we completed delivery of our year-long partnership with the Foundation of Nursing Studies (FoNS). In 2024, NHS England commissioned FoNS to deliver a new Leadership Development Programme of workshops for In-patient Mental Health Ward Managers across the UK.

This partnership put into practice our belief that people with lived experience should design, lead and shape the work that we do. Dance Leader, Peter Pamphlett and Leadership and Inclusion Facilitator, Eve Emsley co-delivered the ‘Inclusion in Action’ workshops to 180 Ward Managers over the course of the programme. Participants left feeling inspired and confident to make changes that will help their wards become more inclusive.

We are now working to deliver these workshops more widely with a range of organisations in different sectors. If you are looking for inclusion workshops, please get in touch with us.

Sharing Best Practice Internationally

This year we continued to share the impact of co-production and inclusive practice with international audiences and practitioners. In September, members of our team took part in the European Association for Mental Health in Intellectual Disability congress in Belgium. Through workshops and symposiums with academics and healthcare professionals, we showed how creative and inclusive practices can support improved mental health, increased social connection and better services for people with learning disabilities.

We will continue to grow our international work in 2026 and are looking forward to an exchange programme with our partners at Land Fes in Japan. This collaboration will help us learn from each other and bring new ideas into our programmes.

Celebrating Success: Lifetime Achievement Award

We were incredibly proud to see our Co-founder Sue Blackwell honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Best Business Women Awards this year. Sue has been central to the DanceSyndrome story, and this recognition celebrates her impact on dance, inclusion and community over the last two decades. It was a moving moment for everyone connected with DanceSyndrome and very well deserved.

Environment Week: Learning Through Movement

In July we delivered our first Environment Week, a co-produced programme that combined dance and climate learning. Our Environment Champions co-created a range of arts-based sustainability activities. Highlights included outdoor creative dance sessions, litter picking, workshops that developed movement to environmental themed poetry, and sessions exploring dance for film. All activities focused on nature and the environment.

Environment Week showed that dance can be a gentle but powerful way to learn about and care for the world around us and that small actions can make a big difference. It was a creative, hands-on way to build awareness and have fun while learning.

National Lottery Support: Pathways to Thrive

We were thrilled to celebrate new funding from The National Lottery Community Fund this year. “Pathways to Thrive” is a project that started in September 2025. The aim is to create a clear pathway of dance activities for children and young people that leads directly into our adult programmes. Thanks to this investment we can start to expand our inclusive dance provision to reach families with children from Early Years through to Adulthood.

As part of the project, we have established a new Community Team and welcomed three new staff members who will help to make this vision a reality over the next five years. Their work will build partnerships, develop inclusive classes and create routes into long-term participation.

You can read more about this story on the news page on this link.

Thank You and Looking Ahead to 2026

None of this success would be possible without our participants, Dance Leaders, Dance Artists, volunteers, families, staff and supporters. Thank you to everyone who has danced with us, given their time or donated. We are also grateful to the funders and partners who continue to believe in our work and invest in more inclusive futures for everyone.

We are looking forward to creating even more opportunities for people of all abilities to lead, create and perform in 2026 and we hope you will join us again!