Usually in August, I can get a little time to reflect and think in terms of both where the company has been in the past year and where it is going to in the future year. However August 2012 saw the company really take off in new directions following invitations to perform at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh and Tanz@Namedy in Germany. As a result we were straight back into the studio to make my new work Missing Pages in September, and we haven’t stopped since!
I now have a little bit of breathing space to reflect before January.
I love the period of Advent before Christmas, but am ever mindful of the fact that Christmas time for some people is very painful having lost loved ones: I think particularly of the family of Keith Dykes, our Chairman of the Board, who passed away very suddenly this week.
The warmth of people at this time of year is a real incentive to assess the work that FFIN DANCE undertakes in the community and new projects are planned and waiting to go, funding permitting. Next week we celebrate at the awards evening for SCARF Dance and Abertillery Youth Dance Company where our community dancers will be presented with certificates for endeavour, attendance and commitment. I look forward to watching the youth dancers and children perform for their families and friends in an informal sharing, ending in a cuppa and cakes. The community can be very proud of them.
A few weeks back, I looked back at a 5 year business plan that I wrote in 2007 and was amazed at what the company has achieved in that time. Although I had the utmost faith that we would do what we set out to do, I never thought that we would surpass that by so much.
So a full circle has evolved: five years has passed since the Arts Council turned our grant application down and we have done it on our own! But never a person to burn my bridges, I am off for a meeting at the Arts Council of Wales tomorrow to see how things have changed in the funding strategy and to boast about the company tucked away in a small Welsh valleys town, who now have a world-wide following, over 517,666 hits on our website in 12 months and an audience that many larger companies would be very happy to have. Wish me luck …
sue lewis