Learning Disability Week 2024

Monday 17th June sees the start of national Learning Disability Week 2024. This year for national Learning Disability Week, the theme is “Do you see me?”

This is something that DanceSyndrome’s dancers have considered a lot in recent years as work to raise awareness about what people with learning disabilities can achieve when given the right support and opportunities.

DanceSyndrome is an inclusive dance charity supporting people with learning disabilities to access a wide range of opportunities in community dance. A huge part of our mission is to challenge the way that society sees people with learning disabilities and what they are able to achieve. We challenge the barriers that people with a learning disability face by demonstrating and celebrating the amazing work that our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities are doing. This is exactly what the national #LDWeek campaign is about.

This year we have gone behind the scenes of SENse, our latest performance piece, to think about the co-production process and the messages that were built into the performance piece. We will be sharing one video each day showing a clip from the performance piece, with Dance Leaders explanations of the creative thought process behind that piece. If you would like to see SENse, there is a great opportunity to see it on 8th July as part of Kaleidoscope Festival at The Storyhouse in Chester.

We will also be introducing seven new choreographers with learning disabilities who have each created a dance piece which will be featured at our iCreate Choreographic Showcase on 1st July. It’s important that choreographers with learning disabilities have opportunities to create and we thought that Learning Disability Week 2024 was a good time to introduce their work. If you would like to see the pieces performed live, they will be presented for the first time at iCreate: A Choreographic Showcase on Monday 1st July at The Media Factory, in Preston.

You can check out the daily Learning Disability Week 2024 videos from each of these projects on our social media channels: Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube.

The theme for #LDWeek24 is “Do you see me?” During the week, we want to amplify the voices of our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities and share the ways that they use dance as a way to challenge perceptions about learning disabilities and the amazing things that they can achieve when they are seen and supported properly.

Follow us all through #LDWeek24 as we share the inspiration for different parts of the “SENse” piece, which addresses issues of visibility in society. We will be releasing new videos throughout the week, so keep checking back for new videos!

In a Big Brother world where it’s easy to feel as though we are constantly being watched.

Are we ever truly seen?

SENse explores humanity’s need to be seen, felt and heard through a number of episodic pieces that have been developed from individual dancers’ own connections to the theme.

The piece doesn’t follow a linear narrative and we invite our audience, to derive their own meaning from the episodes.

DanceSyndrome will be celebrating the achievements of our beginner Choreographers who have individually created their own dance pieces at iCreate: A Choreographic Showcase on 1st July.

The evening will comprise of 7 new dance pieces which have been created by members of the DS Collective performance company, who each wanted to gain experience of being a Choreographer.

Everything you will see and hear, from lighting, costumes, set design, music and movements, will be the independent ideas of the choreographer, who is a person with a learning disability. Each day this week we will be introducing a different choreographer and their dance piece through videos on our social media.

Be prepared for the unexpected as we go from Barbie™️ to OuttaSpace and even Micheal Jackson! This event is about celebrating what happens when someone who is new to Choreography is enabled and allowed complete creative freedom!

We’d love it if you would join us for the live event:

iCreate: A Choreographic Showcase
Monday 1st July at 6:30pm
At The Media Factory, UCLan
Tickets are pay as you feel and are available to book online here: iCreate: A Choreographic Showcase

We hope that you will join us this week at one of our events, or by joining the conversation on social media. We hope to inspire people to see how much people with learning disabilities are able to achieve if they are given the right support. As a small charity, our mission is to provide the support needed so that people with learning disabilities can not just be included in dance sessions, but can take on visible leadership roles. Our work transforms lives for people who might not be able to access those opportunities elsewhere.

If you would like to support DanceSyndrome’s life-changing work with people with learning disabilities during Learning Disability Awareness Week, please visit our Donate page or donate directly using the form below.