Monday morning and a bit of a come-down after a marvellous few days in Anglesey, North Wales. On Thursday morning we travelled from one end of Wales to the extreme end of the other, a beautiful journey through unspoilt countryside with not a motorway in sight.
For those new to the structure of FFIN DANCE we have an underpinning education and outreach unit to the company called the ffin dance faktry.
Although FFIN DANCE is not a dance in education company, we believe that an infra-structure of dance activity starting from an early age is an essential tool to develop a future audience for dance: young people watching and participating in high quality, professionally led activity.
Whilst we were in Holyhead, we worked with children at the local youth club, the local high school and also the young dancers at the Barton Academy of Dance and Drama. We have worked alongside Helen Barton and her students for 6 years now and we have built up a great relationship of support and respect for each others’ work. The students as always were hard-working and talented and a joy to teach. Big thanks to Helen for yet another great project.
Canolfan Ucheldre, the venue where we perform in Holyhead, is developing a good audience for dance and has recently undertaken a re-furb of their auditorium, with new seating which adds a great new facility to their programme. Thanks to manager Mike Gould, technical assistant Ben Morgan and the team at the venue for making our stay so memorable.
The audience at Ucheldre always has been one that asks questions of me: during the pre-performance talk and also during the intervals, I get talking about the choreography of the show – it’s a lovely privilege to share my artistic intentions in this way.
Lots of new friends and contacts made too and hoping to extend our folio of work in Holyhead in the future.
So back to this week and organising our Easter Intensive for professional dancers and the Easter Dance Faktry Festival, our twice yearly platform for emerging choreographers. We hope you can join us.
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sue lewis