DanceSyndrome Online Dance Sessions #CarryOnDancing
Everyone at DanceSyndrome was disappointed when we were forced to have to cancel our regular dance sessions due to the coronavirus outbreak (you can read our COVID-19 Statement on the news page). At this time it is still unclear when regular community sessions will return. We will keep you up to date with any news on this. In the meantime, our Dance Artists have put together an exciting programme of online dance sessions for you to join in with from home.
We are planning to offer the following sessions each week:
Monday 10am – Everybody Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Tuesday 10am – Creative Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Wednesday 3pm – Zoom Everybody Dance
Thursday 10am – Everybody Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Friday 10am – Everybody Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Friday 3pm – Zoom Junior DanceSyndrome session (for children only)
If you would like to join in with the Zoom sessions, we are charging £2.50 per person to help us to cover our costs of providing the sessions. Please visit the Events page of our website and pick the date that you want to take part. Complete the registration form and we will email you the login details to join us and some tips for using Zoom safely. We can’t wait to see some friendly faces and #CarryOnDancing together again!
To keep you busy in between Zoom sessions, there is now a substantial playlist of sessions on this YouTube link and these are also available on this Facebook link.
We really hope that you will choose to join us and that we can build on the success of these sessions with even more online dance in the future! If you can’t join us but love the work that we do, please consider supporting us with a donation – times are very tough for small charities at the moment. Thank you so much for your continued support!
Express Showcase DVDs
Following the Express Showcase on 1st March, Rose Trustam approached the DanceSyndrome team to tell us why she had chosen to make a donation to support our work. We want to share Rose’s feelings with you and thank her for the significant impact her donation will make to the future of our charity.
“As a professional involved in the sector, I’ve worked in learning disabilities since 1978. My contact with Dancesyndrome has been as an admirer of the work they do – I have actually gone to a couple of their workshops in Chorley as a participant; I’ve been to a couple of their performances and also was at Linkability’s AGM when Jen Blackwell and Peter Pamphlett did a performance. I’ve met with Jen Blackwell and Sue Blackwell and know several of the people with learning disabilities who have trained as co-trainers or have attended/attend their workshops and so have seen growth in confidence as well as seen and heard their positive appreciation of the group and their opportunities it has presented.
“The way that DanceSyndrome work is probably unique in that people with learning disabilities have an equal place & value with dancers and dance leaders without learning disabilities. This promotes high standards but also encourages their equal contribution to the choreography, performances and workshops as dance leaders. I’ve seen how people have flourished, growing as dance leaders and performers through their training; it has led to increased confidence in many areas of their lives including friendships and enhanced social lives. It also cuts across prejudices that too often limit people’s lives and helps the public to understand just what people have to offer given a chance. The values which appreciate the talents and potential of all people are embedded in this group and are lived out in the way people are supported and developed. Given the chance to develop as dance leaders, other parts of their lives are seen to flourish too.
“What I’ve seen across the years has been a remarkable and growing impact on people with learning disabilities locally and regionally, but also across the country from performances and TV coverage and including Scotland (from their Edinburgh Fringe performances). People are proud to be associated with DanceSyndrome and are proud of them, and as has been seen over recent years their impact has spread.
“For me, I am proud to support this exceptional group which has grown out of a real commitment to dance and to the real inclusion and equality of people with learning disabilities. The ethos is a passion for dance and an inclusion of all; people’s voices are not only heard, they are what leads the group and its direction and impact and they are embedded in the culture from the roots. It’s the joy and confidence of the volunteers that will never I’m sure allow it to be less than inspirational to all involved and whom they touch.”
Rosemary Trustam
Voluntary coordinator of Preston Learning Disability Forum
Publisher Community Living magazine
If you’re inspired by Rose’s generous donation and would like to donate yourself, you can donate directly using the form below or visit the Fundraising page of this site for other ways to donate.
DanceSyndrome is thrilled to have received a donation of £1,320 from Care Housing Association, to support the work of Dance Leaders with learning disabilities across Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Nottingham.
Care Housing Association, based in Rawtenstall Lancashire, develops Specialist Supported Housing, predominantly in the North West, for people requiring support. They partner with specialist support providers and local authorities to ensure all their tenants receive appropriate care and support in order to empower them to live as independently as possible within the community.
DanceSyndrome is a multi-award winning dance charity that delivers inclusive dance workshops and dance leadership training, as well as inspiring performances that demonstrate a focus on ability rather than disability. The charity was founded by Jen Blackwell, who happens to have Down’s syndrome, because she found it difficult to find opportunities in community dance due to her disability. DanceSyndrome’s ethos is that disability should never be a barrier to following your dreams. Dancers with and without disabilities work together to inspire people to see what can be achieved when we all become more inclusive.
In March, the COVID-19 outbreak meant that the vulnerable adults that DanceSyndrome support would need to observe social distancing for at least twelve weeks. The charity had to adapt quickly. The DanceSyndrome team wanted to limit the impact of isolation on participants and continue to make them feel a part of what they refer to as “the dancing family”. They decided to take the workshops online using Facebook and YouTube to bring the sessions to regular participants and anyone else who wanted to use them to stay active at home during isolation. These sessions are free to access but DanceSyndrome is still paying self-employed Dance Artists to deliver them. The funding provided by Care Housing Association is enabling this online provision to continue, along with donations from the public.
Care Housing Association CEO Matthew Eddisford said, “DanceSyndrome provides crucial, inclusive opportunities for people with disabilities. I believe equality of access to opportunities such as these which provide a real sense of achievement, an output for individual creativity, and promote the remarkable abilities of some of the participants, is incredibly positive and invaluable. Dawn and her team’s ethos is very much aligned to that of our team at Care and we are happy and proud to be able to support them.”
DanceSyndrome MD Dawn Vickers said, “We are deeply grateful to Matthew and his team for supporting our work with this donation and look forward to building a long lasting relationship between the two charities, to enable the people we serve to lead better, more independent lives. At DanceSyndrome we empower adults with learning disabilities to gain skills not just for dancing and dance leadership but for living independent lives. Care Housing support individuals to access the best housing and support appropriate for their needs. This is a great partnership that I’m sure will benefit many learning-disabled adults whilst give peace of mind to their families and loved ones”.
For more information about Care Housing Association, please visit www.careha.org.uk.
If you would like to try out the free online dance sessions yourself, visit our YouTube channel. If you’re inspired by Care Housing Assocication’s generous donation and would like to donate yourself, you can donate directly using the form below or visit the Fundraising page of this site for other ways to donate.
DanceSyndrome Zoom dance sessions starting this week!
Our online dance sessions via YouTube and Facebook have been really well received and we’re really grateful to everyone who has joined in or helped to spread the word about these sessions!
Our freelance Dance Artists have been working really hard behind the scenes to put these sessions together, but also to try and get the number and type of sessions right. The main challenge that we are facing is that we aren’t getting very much feedback and we can’t see the people who are participating, so we’re not getting that amazing feeling of seeing you all enjoying your dance sessions! We’re sure some of our participants are missing seeing their friends dancing and inspiring each other too – we know how important face to face interaction is to health and wellbeing.
To try and overcome these challenges, we have decided to offer some online dance sessions through Zoom too.
We are planning to offer the following sessions each week:
Monday 10am – Everybody Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Tuesday 10am – Creative Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Wednesday 3pm – Zoom Everybody Dance
Thursday 10am – Everybody Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Friday 10am – Everybody Dance (YouTube & Facebook)
Friday 3pm – Zoom Junior DanceSyndrome session (for children only)
If you would like to join in with the Zoom sessions, we are charging £2.50 per person to help us to cover our costs of providing the sessions. Please visit the Events page of our website and pick the date that you want to take part. Complete the registration form and we will email you the login details to join us and some tips for using Zoom safely. We can’t wait to see some friendly faces and #CarryOnDancing together again!
To keep you busy in between Zoom sessions, there is now a substantial playlist of sessions on this YouTube link and these are also available on this Facebook link.
We really hope that you will choose to join us and that we can build on the success of these sessions with even more online dance in the future! If you can’t join us but love the work that we do, please consider supporting us with a donation – times are very tough for small charities at the moment. Thank you so much for your continued support!
At DanceSyndrome we are always proud of the fact that we offer a great support network to our participants and do all we can to prevent social isolation – so much so that our dancers refer to us as their “Dancing Family”. The last two weeks and the developing Coronavirus situation have been tough for us all as we are usually in each other’s company so often and we love to be together. So we wanted to share with you how we are all pulling together to support each other.
Once the decision was taken to close our weekly sessions on Tuesday 17th March, our team immediately started working on ways to maintain the vital connections that we have with our dancers. Our Dance Leaders (many of whom are people with learning disabilities) drive everything that we do and they told us they wanted to keep dancing and, as always, we were led by them.
Becky Rich even started filming herself delivering participatory dance in her own home in the meantime! Well done to her dad Simon for joining in!
Our Dance Artists set to work developing a way to deliver every single one of our usual sessions using an online platform and, most importantly, working out how the workshops would still be co-led by people with learning disabilities. It was decided that YouTube and Facebook would be the best way to do this and that, in the interest of not excluding anyone, these sessions should be free. The end result is fully inclusive dance sessions that are edited together to combine videos of the Dance Leaders and Dance Artists leading the workshops from their own homes.
This proved easier for Jen and David than for the others as they have gone into isolation together, with David providing PA support to Jen. They were able to film their sessions together in the same room, but the dancing didn’t stop there! They were also determined to #CarryOnDancing in any way that they could!
Posted by David Andrew Darcy on Monday, 23 March 2020
We’re all so proud of how our team have responded – this is a positive, innovative and inclusive response to a very challenging situation. (See this open letter from our MD Dawn Vickers for more information).
The support we are offering to our “Dancing Family” doesn’t end there though. Our dancers are all supporting each other via WhatsApp. They are sharing photos and videos of themselves participating in our online activities as well as sharing non-dance related ideas for looking after your health and wellbeing via this group and are cheering each other on through this hard time!
Here is fabulous Lucie White joining in with online #inclusive #Ballet from the comfort & safety of her own home! Link to session https://t.co/afSQz11HAd
If you've had a go, please give us your feedback or share you videos and photos using #ShowUsYourMoves and/or #CarryOnDancing pic.twitter.com/jUMJYm1ygP
— DanceSyndrome (@DanceSyndrome) March 23, 2020
Peter has been busy painting – his first painting was the DS logo!
Everyone has been getting fresh air – in line with government guidance of course! But they have also been colouring, gardening, baking, exercising, resting and planning for the future too!
To help other people to maintain good physical and mental health, we have compiled a list of some useful resources that you can use to stay well during the Coronavirus outbreak (links in purple).
Meet N Match are another local charity providing social events for people with learning disabilities to meet and form relationships. Obviously this is difficult at the moment, but they are coming up with innovative ideas for online events, starting with this virtual pub quiz!
Advice from Rethink Mental Health about how to stay well during self-isolation.
Every Mind Matters is online mental health support provided by the NHS.
This site has a list of virtual museum tours and zoo cameras to recreate a family day out from your home!
Chatterpack is a website that provides resources for parents of children with SEND. They have some great recent blogs that have ideas for keeping busy during these difficult times.
Books Beyond Words have created a guide to Coronavirus for people with learning disabilities. This easy read book has been produced with help from PHE and the NHS to ensure the message is consistent.
There is also a growing resource library for people who support people with learning disabilities on this link
We’re happy to add to this list if you have any suggestions.
If you would like to support DanceSyndrome’s work at this time, we would be very grateful – as we are no longer running our sessions or attending events our income has dramatically dropped as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak. You can donate directly using the form below or find out more about other ways to donate on the Fundraising page of this site.
Hi everyone,
I do hope that you and yours are keeping well and sane in these extraordinary times we find ourselves in.
We have cancelled all face to face dance activity until further notice. In the meantime we will be offering online dance sessions starting on Monday 23rd March and ask you all to bear with us whilst we test out the best ways to do this. Here is the first session:
We have an initial plan in place now and intend to roll out sessions on the same days and times as we would have held these in our community settings.
Please see our news item here for the details to date: https://dancesyndrome.co.uk/online-dance-sessions/
We are living our values and doing everything we can to stay positive, connected and resilient. We intend to offer our online sessions free of charge and are asking for donations from all our supporters. I am also contacting our funders past and present to ask for additional funding support for salaries and freelance staff.
In the coming weeks we will be forming detailed planning in readiness for when we are able to relaunch our community dance work. In the meantime we ask that you all support this amazing charity by sharing our social media and linking us to people and organisations who can help us gain donations and/or funding during in this crisis. And of course sharing our good practice as a dedicated team who refuse to be beaten down.
From the ashes of disaster come the roses of success! (It’s a line from a song, there may be a prize if you can guess it).
If you’re not already doing so, please follow DanceSyndrome on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Linked In and Twitter. If you have more time on your hands right now then let’s really push to get a movement going on our social channels. We’re using the hashtags #carryondancing #showusyourmoves #righttodance and linking to the trending hashtags, for example #wereinthistogether
We will start our online dance sessions using You Tube as the platform and evaluate how this goes. If we get an increased following there may be opportunities to get advertisers’ interested. We’ve also contacted all the media and are asking them to feature us, we’ll keep doing this and evaluate where we are in a month’s time.
We are also asking our Dance Leaders and participants to film themselves dancing at home and share on our channels. All of our dancing family who are known to us personally are self isolating and we are setting up systems to buddy remotely to keep everyone connected.
I will keep you all informed of our progress. Please do send me your thoughts, ideas, contacts, anything and everything that could help us and we will action these wherever possible – dawn@dancesyndrome.co.uk
Thank you so much for getting behind the work of some incredible people, all brought together by Jen Blackwell’s dream. We need to keep her dream alive.
All very best wishes,
Dawn Vickers, Managing Director – DanceSyndrome
DanceSyndrome Responds to Coronavirus Closures with Free Online Dance Sessions
Update: Tuesday 21st April 2020
Our online dance sessions via YouTube and Facebook have been really well received and we’re really grateful to everyone who has joined in or helped to spread the word about these sessions!
Our freelance Dance Artists have been working really hard behind the scenes to put these sessions together, but also to try and get the number and type of sessions right. The main challenge that we are facing is that we aren’t getting very much feedback and we can’t see the people who are participating, so we’re not getting that amazing feeling of seeing you all enjoying your dance sessions! We’re sure some of our participants are missing seeing their friends dancing and inspiring each other too. To try and overcome this, we have decided to offer some sessions on Zoom too.
Check out this news page for the full details.
Wednesday 18th March 2020
Everyone at DanceSyndrome was disappointed yesterday when we were forced to have to cancel our sessions until the end of April due to the coronavirus outbreak.
We engage with over 150 participants and volunteers each week and we know how valuable dance is to them for their health and wellbeing and to prevent them from becoming isolated, so this was a very difficult decision to make, but health must always come first.
Team DS always rise to a challenge though and before sessions were even cancelled we were looking at ways to ensure that our provision continues whilst protecting the health and wellbeing of our participants, families, staff and volunteers.
Our team have been busy researching, planning and creating and we are excited to be able to share our plans with you!
From Monday 23rd March our DanceSyndrome sessions will take place at their usual times on our Facebook and YouTube channels – links will be shared on all our social media and our website too to make it really easy to find the videos.
The sessions will be adapted so that people can take part safely from the comfort of their own home (even your armchair) and will be suitable for EVERYONE! People with a range of abilities and disabilities will be able to participate, including children who are off school and elderly people who are social distancing. It will be a great way to keep active, boost your mental health and take your mind off the outside world!
As with everything we do, the sessions will be disability led, driven by our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities. DanceSyndrome Founder Jen Blackwell and her fellow Dance Leaders will be delivering these sessions remotely from their own homes in collaboration with our professional Dance Artists to offer high quality online dance sessions.
Online dance sessions will be as follows:
Monday 11:15am – Ballet techniques
Monday 1:00pm – Street Dance techniques
Monday 2:15pm Jazz techniques
Tuesday 11am – Everybody Dance (usually held in Chorley) – Jen Blackwell and Donna Harrison/David Darcy
Wednesday 10:15am – Everybody Dance (usually held in Preston) – Jodie Turner and Sophie Tickle/Anna James
Wednesday 11am – Everybody Dance (usually held in Hindley) – Jonathan Rodman and Donna Harrison/David Darcy
Wednesday 12:30pm – Contemporary dance techniques
Wednesday 1:30pm – Creative dance activities
Thursday 10:30am – Everybody Dance (usually held in Accrington) – Lizi Boothby and Helen Shepherd
Saturday 10:30am – Everybody Dance (usually held in Clitheroe) – Pauline Hall and Helen Shepherd
Days and times are the times when videos will go live, but they will stay on our channels so that you can join in at any time that suits you.
We’d love you to join in with the dancing but also join in with the conversation on social media – tell us what you enjoyed about the sessions, send us photos and videos of yourself and your family joining in, talk to other people who love dance on our channels. We may need to be physically distanced but we can still be socially connected online!
We think this is a really exciting response to a really challenging situation for a small charity like DanceSyndrome and we are really proud of our team for responding so quickly and in such a creative way. Yesterday, 68 weekly sessions were cancelled in total, our Dance By Example Level 2 training has also been postponed and we have lost several major paid performance opportunities. This will amount to a significant loss of income for us as a charity.
If you join in with the sessions and enjoy them, please consider making a donation to help our small charity to survive in these difficult times. These sessions will be free online, but they typically cost between £3 – £7 to attend. We know this is a difficult time for everyone, but if you are able to support our work in any way, please use the form below or text one of the following numbers:
£1 – text DANCE to 70201
£3 – text DANCE to 70331
£5 – text DANCE to 70970
£10 – text DANCE to 70191
£20 – text DANCE20 to 70191
Every donation makes a difference to us, so we really appreciate any support you can give us.
Updated message 17/03/2020
Following the Government statement yesterday evening, our Board of Trustees had a discussion about how this should impact our work. The decision was made to close all DanceSyndrome sessions with immediate effect.
There will not be any DanceSyndrome sessions from today until the end of April.
We understand that some participants may feel upset by this decision, we are disappointed too, but this decision had to be made to ensure we are looking after the health and safety of looking after everyone including participants, volunteers, staff and families.
We understand that not being able to access dance sessions may have a negative impact on the wellbeing of our participants, so we are currently working hard to develop an online resource that will allow us to provide dance activities in your home. We also have a great network of people on our social media, so if you want to reach out to our other dancers, please use our online community for support or reach out to our staff.
Please stay up to date with any developments via the news page of our website, our Facebook, Twitter or Linked In.
Obviously, the coronavirus outbreak is still a developing situation so we will update all participants in a few weeks once the situation becomes more clear.
Most importantly, please take care of yourself until we see you next!
From
The DanceSyndrome Team
Join us on social media in the run up to Down’s Syndrome Awareness Week and “Show us your moves” as part of our new fundraising campaign!
Do you believe that everyone has the right to dance? Do you believe in an inclusive and equitable Society where everyone can follow their dreams?
DanceSyndrome breaks down barriers and uses dance to do it.
People with learning disabilities, including Down’s syndrome, face many inequalities in all aspects of their lives. DanceSyndrome uses dance to address these inequalities and to empower people with and without disabilities to believe that anything is possible if you follow your dreams and live the life that you choose.
At DanceSyndrome we believe Society should empower people by focusing on talents and abilities rather than disabilities. So, we are sharing videos that will demonstrate that everyone has a right to dance and that there is beauty in all dance movements.
We want to get the world dancing so please join in by showing us your own favourite dance moves on social media – tag us and your friends, ask people to donate and let’s get everyone dancing and sharing this important message!
If you believe in our inclusive message, please support our fundraising campaign to enable us to continue to change the way people think about disability.
Text DANCE to 70331 to donate £3, complete the form below or visit the fundraising page for lots of other ways to donate, including Just Giving and Paypal.
#ShowUsYourMoves on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram!
