DanceSyndrome is grateful for the support of The NHS North West Genomic Medicine Service Alliance.
The NHS North West Genomic Medicine Service Alliance is supporting healthcare professionals across the NHS, to see where and how genomic medicine and services can be provided more effectively and efficiently for individuals and families, with genetic conditions.
The Alliance is proud to support DanceSyndrome as an award-winning inclusive dance charity, focusing on inclusion, regardless of ability. They align to our mission of providing opportunities for people with disabilities, not only to be included but to become more visible, have their voices heard on important issues, to follow their dreams, and to succeed in their ambitions.
The NHS North West Genomic Medicine Service Alliance is ensuring greater equality of access to healthcare for all and everyone is treated with respect and dignity, where visible and non-visible differences are embraced. As a proud advocate for inclusion, DanceSyndrome celebrates this approach and is proud to work with the service.
To find out more about NHS North West Genomic Medicine Service Alliance, please visit https://www.nw-gmsa.nhs.uk/
At the end of national Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023, we wanted to bring together all of the messages that we have been sharing through the week. The theme for #LDWeek23 was “busting myths about living life with a learning disability”.
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 asked our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities to give us 10 myths that they’d like to bust during the week and we have been sharing them throughout the week on our social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn & YouTube.
We think they did an amazing job of identifying and busting myths and we wanted to bring all those positive messages together in one place here:
We hope that these videos have inspired 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 is life-changing for people who might not be able to access those opportunities elsewhere.
The Dance Leaders decided to make 10 videos to fit in with our #TeamTen fundraising campaign. You may know that 2023 marks DanceSyndrome’s 10th anniversary of becoming a charity. We are looking for 1,000 people willing to donate £10 to help us to raise £10,000 in our tenth anniversary year. If you are able to make this a regular donation, either monthly or annually, it would make even more of an impact on our future.
Your donation will ensure that we have a long term future and can continue to support people with learning disabilities to not only stay connected, stay involved and stay healthy, but to be visible leaders in society who change the way that people think about living life with a disability – just as they have done with their Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023 campaign!
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.
Monday 19th June sees the start of national Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023. The theme for the week is “busting myths about living life with a learning disability”.
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 asked our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities to give us 10 myths that they’d like to bust during the week. You can check out the full list on our social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube).
One of the myths identified was “people with a learning disability can’t read or write”.
Today, DanceSyndrome Spokesperson and Ambassador Becky Rich wants to bust that myth!
Becky plays a key role in DanceSyndrome’s mission to challenge perceptions on a daily basis and she is always writing letters to high profile individuals to campaign for change. Back in April she had a very important trip to London to meet with MPs at 10 Downing Street, so she has written a blog for us to share with you to celebrate Learning Disability Awareness Week.
Here is Becky’s unedited blog (including visuals of her handwritten notes).
My Day in London by Becky Rich
I am Becky Rich and I am 32 years old I am Ambassador and Spokesperson for DanceSyndrome charity. I am a Dance Leader and I take my job very seriously.
I had a day in London on 24th of April 2023. On Monday morning my Dad and Claire and I went to the train station and we waited on the platform and we got on the train at 11 o’clock. We were relaxing and after that we were having our lunch. We were relaxing on the train on our way to London. I was very excited. We arrived in London at 1.00 pm in the afternoon.
In London my Dad and Claire and I had a wonderful and lovely walk in St James’s Park off the Mall leading to Buckingham Palace. I really did enjoy the walk in the Royal Gardens.
After that my Dad and Claire and I went to the pub to have a drink. I had my drink of Diet Coke after that Claire was sorting me out and she was putting make up on my face, lpstick and blusher and eye shadow, to make me look beautiful. After that Claire photographed me and then told me good luck and my big moment arrived!
My Dad and I set off about quarter to 4 to meet my friend Sara BritCliffe MP. She joined me and my Dad with everyone queuing up to go through a security check. We got through then we all made our way into No.10 Downing Street. We all went inside. To go to No. 10 Downing Street was my dream come true.
In No. 10 Downing Street the event was Local Charities and Champion Reception. Inside No. 10 Downing Street I met Stuart Andrew MP the speaker for the event. I gave him DanceSyndrome bracelet and he mentioned my name in his speech, that was incredible absolutely fantastic! It felt great, that made my day.
After that I spoke to other MPs about the work we do and I told them about the work that I do. After the event my friend Sara Britcliffe invited my Dad and Claire and I to go on a guided tour. Alex Kelly who works with Sara Britcliffe showed us around the House of Parliament and talked about the history of it. I absolutely loved it. On the way to House of Commons I met some wonderful MPs and shook their hands. It was wonderful to meet them.
After that we arrived at the House of Commons. We went inside. We went upstairs to the Gallery and we sat down and watched some MPs in action. It was absolutely fantastic.
After that we went to the London Euston Train Station. We went to the pub to have a drink and my brother Alex joined us. My Claire went to get some food for tea time for the train. We said goodbye to my brother Alex he went home. My Dad and Claire and I went to Platform 2. We got the train at 7:30pm and it was relaxing and after that we were eating our food for our teatime. We had a very relaxing journey back home. We arrived back at Preston train station at 10:00pm We went back home.
It was a truly memorable day.
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.
Monday 19th June sees the start of national Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023. The theme for #LDWeek23 is “busting myths about living life with a learning disability”.
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.
To celebrate Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023, we asked our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities to give us 10 myths that they’d like to bust during the week. You can check out the full list on our social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube.
As well as our social media campaign, we have lots of activities going on through the week.
Exciting news!
We are celebrating some extra special news this week as our Fonder Jen Blackwell has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in the King’s Birthday Honours, which were announced on Saturday 17th June.
You can read the full story on the News page on our website.
Inclusive Dance Activities
Our full programme of inclusive dance activities is running all through Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023!
If you have never tried inclusive dance which is co-delivered by a person with a learning disability, then why not try it this week?
You can find a full list of activities on the Sessions page of our website.
Blackpool North Station Takeover
To celebrate Learning Disability Awareness Week 2023, member of the DanceSyndrome team will be at Blackpool North Station on Saturday 24th June.
Come & join us from 10:30am – 1pm as we takeover #Blackpool North Station and get everyone dancing!
Find out what DanceSyndrome is all about, chat with our Dance Leaders with learning disabilities about why inclusion matters and, of course, do some inclusive dancing with us!
#TeamTen
You may know that 2023 marks DanceSyndrome’s 10th anniversary of becoming a charity. Charities do not survive to the 10 year mark without significant support from the communities that they serve. There is significant demand for our services and we are creative with our offering, achieving a lot on a small budget. As a small charity our only real limitation is financial, so we are incredibly grateful for the generous support of our followers.
Could you join #TeamTen and help DanceSyndrome to make it through the NEXT ten years? We are looking for 1,000 people willing to donate £10 to help us to raise £10,000 in our tenth anniversary year. If you are able to make this a regular donation, either monthly or annually, it would make even more of an impact on our future.
Your donation will ensure that we have a long term future and can continue to support people with learning disabilities to not only stay connected, stay involved and stay healthy, but to be visible leaders in society who change the way that people think about living life with a disability.
If you are able to support us, you can use the JustGiving button, or donate directly using the form at the bottom of this page.
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 is life-changing 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.
DanceSyndrome’s inspirational founder, Jen Blackwell, has been recognised with a British Empire Medal (BEM) for services to Disabled People in the first King’s birthday honours.
Jen Blackwell is 41 and lives in Chorley. Her greatest passion in life is dance. Jen also has Down’s syndrome but has never let her disability stop her from living life to the full. After she left school, Jen and her mum, Sue, spent 10 years searching for the right dance training opportunities that would allow her to follow her dream to be a Dance Leader and performer. After all those years of searching, they couldn’t find anything that was accessible for Jen because of her learning disability, so in 2009 they took matters into their own hands and set up their own charity, DanceSyndrome.
After 14 years of striving to inspire people in all areas of life to become more inclusive, Jen has been recognised in the 2023 King’s birthday honours. As announced on the 17th June 2023 in an exclusive supplement in The Gazette, Jen has been awarded The British Empire Medal (BEM). The BEM recognises an achievement or contribution of a very “hands-on” service to the community in a local geographical area. This often takes the form of sustained commitment in support of very local charitable and/or voluntary activity; or innovative work that has delivered real impact.
Presentations of BEMs are made locally by The Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire and Jen will be invited to celebrate her achievement later in the year at a garden party at Buckingham Palace.
This is not the first time that Jen and the DanceSyndrome team have been recognised for their work. The charity has been the recipient of many local and national awards over the last 10 years, most notably receiving the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the MBE equivalent for volunteer groups in 2019. This prestigious honour recognises the exceptional contributions made to local communities by groups voluntarily devoting their time for the benefit of others. Jen was thrilled to be invited to Buckingham Palace to celebrate achieving this award.
Jen said “I’m amazed to receive this honour for what I love doing. I’m proud of who I am and the achievements of DanceSyndrome. It’s an honour to inspire others to dance and live a life of their choosing. I believe that everybody can dance and do things they love no matter how other people define us.”
DanceSyndrome Managing Director Julie Nicholson said “Everyone at DanceSyndrome is so proud of Jen and we are thrilled to see her recognised in the King’s birthday honours. This is so well deserved after many years of hard work on the part of Jen, her family, and the team of dancers. Jen has always wanted to change the world through her dance and when she is given accolades like this it demonstrates the huge difference that one person can make if they are determined and dedicated. It’s great to see success on this level and really shows what can be achieved when people with learning disabilities are properly included and supported to follow their dreams.”
If you would like to support our life-changing work, you can donate directly using the form below, or visit our Donations page for other ways to donate.
DanceSyndrome’s dancers are excited to finally be returning to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer after a long break due to Covid.
The DanceSyndrome team are looking forward to performing at TheSpace @ Niddry Street from Thursday 24th August to Saturday 26th August with a completely new performance piece called SENse. Tickets are now available via this Edinburgh Fringe Festival website link.
SENse is a truly inclusive dance performance presented by a team of dancers with and without learning disabilities, who work together to demonstrate the beauty and significance of all movement. The piece is co-produced and co-choreographed by Dance Leaders with learning disabilities working in collaboration with professional Dance Artists, in line with DanceSyndrome’s unique co-delivery model. Together they have considered the idea “In a Big Brother world where it’s easy to feel as though we are constantly being watched, are we ever truly seen?” The performance will explore humanity’s need to be seen, felt and heard through the powerful medium of inclusive dance.
This isn’t the first time that the DanceSyndrome team has performed in Edinburgh. In 2017, the dancers followed their dreams and performed for the first time at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world’s largest arts festival. This was a huge opportunity for the charity to shine on an international stage and audiences at the festival were surprised and delighted at the passion, energy and ability of the dancers, who have overcome many personal barriers to achieve success. The DanceSyndrome dancers had an amazing experience in Edinburgh, learning lots about the performance industry, including successfully promoting their show, eventually achieving a sold-out audience! The success of the 2017 trip gave the dancers a significant confidence boost and, as a result, they returned in August 2018.
When the pandemic happened, the DanceSyndrome team adapted quickly to offer online dance sessions via Zoom and YouTube. As lockdown easing started to happen, the one opportunity that participants continued to say that they felt that they had really missed out on was performing in Edinburgh. Determined to make this dream a reality, the charity ran a fundraising campaign in December 2022 to raise £10,000 towards the trip.
Sophie Tickle, Artistic Director at DanceSyndrome says “It will be incredible to return to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 and present our work after the difficulties of the last few years. People with learning disabilities were hit hardest by the impact of pandemic. Performing at the festival gives our dancers; a platform to create work about issues and themes that matter to them and present them to a wide and eclectic audience; a chance to communicate key messages about inclusion, teamwork, and achievement; and to ensure people with learning disabilities have their voices heard”.
Dance Leader Becky Rich speaks out positively about how having Down’s syndrome does not define her. Talking about previous trips to Edinburgh Becky said “We were very touched by the positive response that we received when handing out our flyers on the Royal Mile to promote our show. Also we had fantastic audiences which made it really special for us as performers and we think we really connected with the audiences in a special way. We all had a very special and fun time in Edinburgh and we really look forward to going back!”
Audience feedback from previous DanceSyndrome performances at Edinburgh Fringe:
If you will be in Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, you can get tickets for the shows via the Edinburgh Fringe Festival website.
We are still in need of business sponsorship to support the costs associated with making this life-changing opportunity happen. If you or someone you know would like to know more about sponsorship opportunities, please visit the Business Sponsorship page of our website.
If you are inspired by DanceSyndrome and the work we do, please consider donating to support our work, using the form below or visit the Fundraising page of our website for more options.
Job Opportunities – Join the DanceSyndrome Team!
As you may have seen in our recent news, DanceSyndrome is currently going from strength to strength and as demand for our work continues to grow, our team needs to grow with it! There are some exciting job opportunities to join our team in a variety of roles.
Trustee Opportunities
DanceSyndrome has an exciting and unique opportunity for the right people to join us as part of our established Board of Trustees.
The role is unpaid and part-time (approximately 10 hours a month) and will include virtual working as well as face-to-face meetings in and around Manchester, Preston and the North West.
The Trustees work closely with the Managing Director to determine the strategic direction of the charity and ensure that the plan to deliver that strategy is implemented.
Find out more in the Trustee Application Pack.
About DanceSyndrome
Established in 2009 as a limited company, DanceSyndrome became a charity in 2013. The charity has experienced an exponential increase in demand both regionally and nationally, and has been added to Arts Council England’s 2023-26 National Portfolio. Using dance as a vehicle for positive change, our vision is to empower learning-disabled individuals through inclusive dance.
All activity is led by a Dance Leader with learning disabilities supported by a professionally trained Dance Artist. Using a co-production model, DanceSyndrome delivers five weekly community workshops and training for the core company. On demand the dancers regularly engage in performances, training, university seminars, conferences and are developing and piloting a social franchise model.
This is a really exciting time for our charity as a new National Portfolio Organisation with Arts Council England and as we deliver on a three year National Lottery Community Fund Project. In April 2022, we launched our ambitious 3-year strategy: Vision 2025 with three key strands:
Equal Opportunities
The DanceSyndrome family is filled with passionate and motivated people. We particularly welcome applicants from Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic communities, People with Disabilities and Older People to apply for these roles. You do not need specific experience of dancing or working previously with people with learning disabilities, we are looking for people who believe in what we do and want to support DanceSyndrome to grow its impact and to help create a fairer, more inclusive and equitable society for everyone.
Please complete our anonymous Equal Opportunities Monitoring form when applying.
To Express An Interest In Applying
Each job role has a different application process, so please download the full application pack before applying.
Fundraising and Grants Manager Application Pack
Trustee Application Pack
We will be interviewing as and when suitable candidates apply, so please apply as soon as possible.
Down’s Syndrome Awareness Week 2023
Down’s Syndrome Awareness Week is a national campaign to help people to understand what life is like for people who have Down’s syndrome and to encourage society to become more inclusive in the way that they treat people with Down’s syndrome.
The theme this year is “With us not for us” which is something DanceSyndrome aims to put into practice every day through our inclusive dance work.Here are some examples of the different ways we do this:
Inclusive Participation – people of all abilities dance together in our sessions
Co-leadership – all of our sessions are co-led by a person with a learning disability and a professional Dance Artist
Changing perceptions of disability through high profile appearances – we go out to community events and support people with learning disabilities to demonstrate their skills and talents!
Performance work – we empower people with learning disabilities by pursuing high quality performance opportunities
Co-creation – we provide opportunities for people with learning disabilities to work with choreographers to co-create their own choreography
Inspiring speeches – people with learning disabilities are supported to give speeches to conference delegates to talk about living life with a disabilities
Throughout the week we will be sharing messages about inclusion and how we put that into practice through many different types of dance activity. Check us out and follow us on these social media platforms to keep up to date and please share our messages to spread the word about what we do!
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Linked In
YouTube
We’ve started the week with a video message from our Ambassador Giovanni Pernice:
As Giovanni explains, small charities like DanceSyndrome need financial support from members of the public to enable us to continue offering opportunities for people with learning disabilities that just don’t exist elsewhere. Throughout Down’s Syndrome Awareness Week, we will be running an online auction to help with fundraising. If you’d like to support our work and get something in return, we have some fabulous prizes from 5 top local visitor attractions. Click the links below to bid on the items:
2 tickets for Coronation Street The Tour
Family ticket for Thornton Hall Country Park, Skipton
Family ticket to watch Preston North End play at Deepdale
2 tickets for Try Curling at Barton Grange Garden Centre & The Flower Bowl
4 tickets to the Sandcastle Waterpark, Blackpool
Please bid generously and help us to raise vital funds for our work!
If you prefer to make a regular donation, there are many different ways you can support us.
- Text – You can donate £10 by phone by texting DANCE to 70191
- Facebook – If you make a donation via Facebook we receive 100% of the donation – there are no fees!
- Just Giving – you can support our Just Giving campaign by donating or setting up your own fundraiser and encouraging your friends and family to support us too.
- Online – You can donate directly using the form below:
The following article was first published in the Winter 2023 edition of Animated magazine and is reproduced by permission of People Dancing. All Rights Reserved. See www.communitydance.org.uk/animated for more information. You can read the full Animated magazine online or download a PDF of the DanceSyndrome feature.
“IF IT NEEDS DOING…” Reflections on a Decade of DanceSyndrome
In November 2022, North-West based inclusive dance charity DanceSyndrome was confirmed as one of Art’s Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations for 2023-2026. In February 2023, the organisation will celebrate 10 years as a charity. Here, Sue and Jen Blackwell the mother and daughter duo who formed the charity, reflect on their journey and the barriers that they faced along the way.
“Exactly 20 years ago, in 2002, People Dancing’s “Dancing Differently” in Manchester was the first conference we ever spoke at,” begins Sue. “Jen, just 21, had turned white as a sheet as we sat on the stage, clutching our scripts, awaiting our turn to speak. Jen shared her thoughts: “I live for dance – it’s my passion and my life. I have the right to a life of my choosing. My future lies in dance. I want to share my passion for dance and get the world dancing.” 20 years on, Jen will now tell you: “I’m living my best life in dance. My disability doesn’t define me for who I am.”
Jen happens to have Down’s syndrome. She went to a mainstream high school and when leaving school in 1999 she was determined that she wanted to turn her passion for dance into a career as a community dance leader.
It turned out to be a 10-year search for the right training and opportunities to follow Jen’s dream. Nobody was offering exactly what she needed – an inclusive structured opportunity, spanning several years, where she could be treated as an equal and with appropriate support around her impairment. During this search, however, it became clear that Jen wasn’t the only person looking for such opportunities.
Sue recalls: “That People Dancing conference in 2002 was a turning point. 200 plus community dancers at the event confirmed that the training we sought didn’t exist anywhere in the UK, so we knew we weren’t alone. It hugely expanded our network and, most importantly, gave us license to stop knocking on doors meeting eternal rejection and become innovative and creative.”
Those early days weren’t easy. We attempted to work with a couple of dancers in different ways and also tried alternative living/caring arrangements for Jen to become more independent, but eventually she returned to our family home broken by the system. With no gainful daytime activity, no dance training or dancers in her life, and in spite of a huge number of acquaintances, not one real friend, Jen was hurting badly.
DanceSyndrome was eventually formed in 2009 after Sue was given the helpful advice “if it needs doing, just do it.” It was officially constituted and registered as a limited company. Funding applications were made to several organisations. The following year Jen advertised for dancers and got over 100 enquiries!!! She selected 14 dancers to work with, half of whom were learning disabled. Together they learned how to communicate through inclusive dance, meeting once a month for a full day rehearsal in Manchester.
2011 marked a pivotal point as DanceSyndrome began to trial our unique co-delivery method – a key factor in our success – with a learning-disabled Dance Leader working collaboratively with a professional dance artist. In monthly sessions, the team worked hard to develop a toolbox of delivery techniques so any dance leader could successfully work with any dance artist, enabling everyone to be included and given the opportunity to lead. Funded by an Awards for All grant, more than 70 workshops were delivered in this way .
This dictated the way forward. 2012 saw the first regular inclusive community dance workshops delivered by these newly trained co-delivery teams. By 2016 DanceSyndrome had grown this provision to be delivering five of these Everybody Dance sessions in different locations across Lancashire and Greater Manchester.
2013 saw the constitution of DanceSyndrome as a charity on 14 February, a significant date because of the love and friendship that DanceSyndrome was already fostering. Important foundations were laid back then and our future success was to rest on the input of many people who gave up time, resources and money in those early days.
We made a good start. Just one month after achieving charitable status television comedian, actor and writer Miranda Hart, and her camera crew visited rehearsals in the run up to a special performance for the Comic Relief Strictly Extravaganza.
Sue also recognised the impact that being fulfilled through dance was having on other aspects of Jen’s life with the achievement of an appropriate direct payment package allowing Jen to purchase her care of choice and beginning to live independently as a tenant of Empower Housing Association.
Another change at this time was the recruitment of a new DanceSyndrome Lead Artist. Performer/choreographer, Sophie Tickle had been working as a freelance for us and was offered the role of Lead Artist in 2013 and in 2021, she became Artistic Director.
Sophie has been integral to the success of DanceSyndrome. All the different opportunities we offer have been developed and refined by Sophie. She has a genuine intuition that allows her to understand individual needs and a caring nature that means she wants to enable and empower people to overcome any challenges and to demonstrate their abilities.
Also driven by Sophie, 2014 saw the introduction of Dance By Example, a unique training course for designed to give learning disabled people and non-disabled leaders/supporting staff the skills and confidence needed to co-deliver dance. This was a real success and many of the participants who were involved are still leading DanceSyndrome workshops or working with the performance team. The course is still delivered today and is now accredited at Level 1 and 2 by Sports Leaders UK.
Another first for DanceSyndrome ,was a lecture and practical workshop on our ethos and methods for 3rd year Dance Performance and Teaching students at the University of Central Lancashire as part of their community dance module. The students were clearly inspired at the end of the day and this led to future work with several universities in a range of different faculties.
This provision is vital to Dance Syndrome’s commitment to changing perceptions of disabled people. Working with aspiring Dance Artists and future health and social care professionals before they start their careers encourages them to think about inclusivity without the bias that may already be established in some organisations and gives hope for a more inclusive future. This work also inspired Dance Syndrome’s most recent professional development offer, Inclusive Approaches, training for established Dance Artists who want to learn the skills to make their work more accessible.
Our unique, inspiring model has been celebrated with award after award, the most prestigious being the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, in 2019, and the Prime Minister’s Points of Light Award in 2018, amongst many others local and national
Speaking about these awards, Jen said “I’m honoured to have been nominated for not one, or two but three awards in 2022 and have won many different awards since 2015 when I was the Inspirational Woman of the Year at the EVAs! (This) shows that learning disabled people can do amazing things with their lives if given a chance. Dancing is my life; I am passionate about dance and about supporting people like me to have opportunities in the dance world.”
Profile raising through winning awards translated into funding success with substantial three-year projects from both Spirit of 2012 and The National Lottery Community Fund. The combination of our courses seemed to work and all was going well for the charity, with inspiring performances at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and National Learning Disability and Autism Awards and TV appearances too… then the pandemic hit.
The DanceSyndrome team quickly started offering free YouTube adaptations of every pre-pandemic session. These remained inclusive, adaptable, and professional, but they lacked the much-needed social interaction that everyone missed so much. Zoom sessions were the obvious solution and they were so popular that at the peak there were 15 sessions a week running, with innovative new styles like a Rave themed session being developed by the co-leaders. Finally in July 2021, indoor dance sessions and live performances returned.
Online dancing enabled DanceSyndrome to reach beyond their physical location, breaking down more barriers than ever before! People from as far as South Africa, Europe and the USA were able to participate with truly inclusive dance for the first time ever, and they loved it – a real positive from the pandemic! In June 2022, the charity was awarded a second Reaching Communities grant from The National Lottery Community Fund to help them to continue offering both online and in-person sessions to empower people across the UK through dance.
Sue reflects that Jen’s original vision is still relevant after so many years: “Fast forward 20 years from that first conference and DanceSyndrome continues to amaze us on a regular basis. It is fueled by passion and determination. Learning disabled dancers lead the dancing family from the front. It demonstrates that no dream is too big if you approach it one step at a time.”
She concludes “Today I confess, I am the proudest parent! But I have the best teacher! Watching and learning as Jen/DanceSyndrome grow and thrive is an enormous privilege. The joy, happiness and confidence that exudes from this dancing family is palpable, virtual or in person, everyone is embraced. No-one feels left out in the cold, no-one is unwelcome, there are no barriers to participation, no glass ceilings. There is beauty in every movement.
To find out more about DanceSyndrome, visit www.dancesyndrome.co.uk or find them on social media @DanceSyndromeUK
Thank you to Animated magazine and People Dancing for permission to reproduce this article.
As we celebrate 10 years as a charity, we need your help to guarantee our future for the next 10 years. Together we can continue to challenge ideas about disability by demonstrating that people with learning disabilities can be valued leaders & dancers. If you would like to donate to support our life-changing work, you can donate through the following donation platforms:
Text message – you can donate £10 by texting DANCE to 70191
Facebook – if you visit our DanceSyndromeUK profile there is a donate button at the top of the page
Just Giving – visit our #TeamTen campaign page on JustGiving.com
On our website – you can use the form below to donate directly:
