Tag Archives: Blaenau Gwent Youth Dance

Winter dance faktry festival 2016

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winter dance faktry festival 2016

winter dance faktry festival 2016

Our twice yearly festival for dance will be held at The Met in Abertillery on November 12th 2016 at 7.30pm.  It’s an opportunity for children, young people and emerging professional dancers to perform and share their work to a packed audience which is supportive and full of enthusiastic friends and parents.

It’s a most special event which aims to promote dance in the community and provide dancers with a professionally produced showcase, giving the festival participants a taste for performance and choreography

 

Off The Street

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OTS posterThis autumn has been an amazing time for our outreach projects with last night’s performance being no exception.
Together with the Arts Development team at Aneurin Leisure, we at the ffin dance faktry co-produced Off The Street, a dance showcase that saw over 70 children and young people from Blaenau Gwent, Wales UK sharing their work in a local theatre.  The energy and enthusiasm from all of the young dancers was truly infectious and the sell-out audience was thrilled with the production.  It was great to hear related stories from parents: one in particular told us how she had made good friends with other mothers that she didn’t really know very well,and their children have also become good playmates since starting dance classes 4 years ago. They had all bonded together because of dance.

Another parent told us that she had really enjoyed the performance which was presented in the round.  She liked being “up close and personal” to the performance to see the joy in her daughters face when she was dancing; never having seen that look before, not even opening her Christmas presents!

We have 1 more outreach event before Christmas on Monday 14th December 2015, at Ebenezer Chapel in Abertillery, Wales UK.  This event will see our young people from the ffin dance faktry share class and dance pieces with their families and friends and also raise much-needed funds for the coming year.

For more information how we can work with your group please contact us info@ffindance.co.uk or text 07854 910926

 

The madness kicking in ..

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The Move Image Paul Trask

The Move
Image Paul Trask

Once again the Ffin Dance Faktry Festival is fast approaching and we have all been working tirelessly preparing for not only the 2014 Easter Dance Faktry Festival but also the A-Level Dance qualification with the FFIN DANCE Outreach and Education programme.

This year the festival has seemed to sneak up on us and there is only a matter of days until the madness of festival week kicks in. Members of all the County Dance groups have been rehearsing for the show, especially both the Blaenau Gwent County Youth Dance Companies who will be performing their new work at the festival this year. At Move (senior county company) we have had a chance to prepare our new work “Perseid” at a number of events that FFIN DANCE has been invited to show their work at this season  This has been a great opportunity for the other youth dancers and myself to really show what youth dancers are capable of achieving.

This year’s show is destined to be the most successful yet and I am very excited to be able to perform once again in one of the local theatres in the county. This year’s faktry festival is especially exciting for me as the senior dancer of The Move as we will be working alongside FFIN DANCE company dancers Catrin and Megan at the Easter Dance Faktry Intensives which is a high-energy series of technical master classes. This once again, has been one of the busiest times of the calendar for The Move and for the Faktry. Let’s hope we survive the week !!

Louis Norman, Senior Dancer The Move

Excitement in the air

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Rachel picAs the winter dance faktry festival rehearsals begins to step up and everybody starts working even harder, there’s always that excitement and eagerness that fills the air.

Being involved with the winter dance faktry festival this year I will be performing with Combination Dance and I’ll be performing a solo piece of my own. For the Combination piece I will be performing with a variety of dancers; we enjoy rehearsals as there is always laughter involved but we are keen to make sure everything is right for the piece.
My very first solo choreography will be showing what I have learnt from studying A Level Dance with FFIN DANCE. I’ve enjoyed learning about the different ways of developing a motif and structuring my own choreography, I never realised how important all the little details were!  I’ve really enjoyed learning about all the topics and music making, I come home every day thinking what can there be to learn next? There is always something new it never ends and I love it!
I am nervous but with a mixture of excitement at the same time to be part of the winter dance faktry festival show this Saturday – and now I can not wait for the show to begin!

Let’s show them what we can do guys!
Rachel

My Life Ambition

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Jasmine with FFIN DANCE workshops

Jasmine with
FFIN DANCE workshops

Rehearsals are starting to get busy as the days get nearer for the Easter Dance Faktry Festival. I am attending four dance classes a week with the dance faktry which add up to 5 hours a week! But in the end it all pays off when you have nice clean piece. 
One piece in particular has a small humour element (AYDC – Abertillery Youth Dance Company). This dance has a mixture of technical dance and theatre dance.  Theatre dance is a style of contemporary we’ve haven’t experienced before so it’s a great opportunity for us. The prop we are using surprised me at first, we’re using shopping bags! We are using them in a mixture of ways. The music we are dancing to is a drum and bass rhythm.
Another one of the pieces performed in the show is to the music “Green Onions”, which was in the film “The Blues Brothers”. This piece is performed by the class Leapers and this time we’ve had a whole bunch of under fives join us.

Also, lots of our younger children are developing their skills and knowledge of dance and are coming up with great ideas for their creative work.

As the years go on, I hope to develop further as I experience more opportunities with FFIN DANCE.  One day, I will hopefully succeed in my lifetime ambition of actually becoming a professional dancer!

Jasmine aged 11 ♥

 

Packed House

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Laura Mumford Photography

Last Saturday was our 5th annual Winter Dance Faktry Festival held at our home base in The Met in Abertillery.

64 community dancers, 10 professional dancers, 2 photographers, 6 volunteers and 3 technicians brought together a showcase performance that ranged from professional dance pieces to works in progress that have been made during community projects over the past term.

We were joined by professional dance companies Ceyda Tanc Dance and Exim Dance, together with our youth groups from the community.

I am delighted to say that we played to a packed house, full not only of excited and supportive parents and friends but also the general public who wanted to come and share our work.  The comments and feedback that we have received have been overwhelming with many congratulations on our achievements.

The Festival has grown and developed over the years and each year sees us making new friends and links and truly is a great celebration of our work and commitment to providing opportunities for young dancers and choreographers to stage their work with professional guidance and support.

Easter Dance Faktry Festival 2013 will be our next venture, we look forward to seeing you all again

Please keep following our company progress via Twitter #ffin dance and join our Facebook pages

sue lewis

Social Enterprise Day

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It’s Social Enterprise Day and Catherine Evans, Wales Co-operative Centre Marketing Manager, is spending some time with Ffin Dance in Abertillery, South Wales.

Dancer leaping into the air

Ffin Dance performer takes flight!

Ffin (pronounced Feen) Dance is a social enterprise which was founded in 2003 by charismatic Artistic Director Sue Lewis. Sue spent many years developing dance in the South Wales Valleys, first as Head of the Dance Department at Ebbw Vale Comprehensive School and subsequently as Director of Blaenau Gwent’s flagship Youth Dance Company, The Move.

The South Wales Valleys is one of the poorest areas in the UK with disproportionately high unemployment and many families living just below the poverty line. Whilst many urged Sue to set up a dance company in the more cosmopolitan environment of Cardiff, she was clear that everyone should have access to high quality, contemporary art, and so decided to base herself and her company in Abertillery.

Traditionally, arts companies have tended to rely on grants to survive, but since Sue found that many grants came with strings attached, she decided to follow a social enterprise model and rely on income earned from classes, ticket sales and commercial opportunities. This has given the company the freedom to pursue its own strategic goals, and forced them to become more entrepreneurial, ambitious and pro-active as a result. The company also has some high profile supporters as a result of its social enterprise status. Internationally renowned performance architect Sheron Wray made a new piece for the company in 2009, and Gary Lambert, a critically acclaimed performer and choreographer, is now the company’s Associate Director. These high profile connections have enabled Ffin Dance to extend its touring programme and it now regularly performs at international festivals across the globe.

Ffin Dance performer

Bending over backwards to make things work!

Today will be a very busy day for the company as it prepares for its Winter Dance Faktry Festival. This is a two-day event which pulls together performances by a number of local community dance groups as well as two fledgling professional companies, who are being given a public platform for the first time to showcase their work. The shows are on at The Met in Abertillery (more details at http://www.the-met.co.uk/events).

The main job for today is to get everything ready for the performances. This means working with the technical team to plan for the final rehearsals, rigging the theatre lighting, making decisions about how to photograph and film the show and making sure all the dressing rooms are ready for when the performers arrive.

Its going to be a busy and exciting day!

Developing Links

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Networking

We have all been really busy in the past few weeks in rehearsal for the FFIN DANCE WINTER DANCE FAKTRY FESTIVAL 2012.

I have been in rehearsals for two new pieces for the festival and am really excited to show the work we have done in the last few months. It is very exciting to yet again be performing in the winter dance faktry festival as it is a great learning opportunity for me as I wish to go on to profesional training.  I will get to watch many profesional and community class pieces and can really see the progression on performance and techinal skills. It is also a great chance to ask the FFIN dancers and other community class dancers questions.

I enjoy participating in the winter dance faktry festival not just to dance and rehearse work, but to watch the profesional pieces and be part of a profesional show.

Louis xx 😀

Louis Norman aged 15

An Intense Time

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Working with New Ground

As a member of ‘The Move’ Blaenau Gwent Youth Dance Company, I am currently very busy rehearsing for the upcoming show ‘winter dance faktry festival‘. I am featured in 3 of the pieces. One is performing with ‘The Move’ another with AYDC and finally as a volunteer for New Ground.

I have really enjoyed volunteering for New Ground and feel that it has been a very worth while experience. I am really looking forward to performing all 3 pieces Saturday. The past few weeks of ‘The Move’ classes have been very intense to insure me and my peers perform ‘Deeper’ to the best of our ability. I think this intense process makes me a better dancer in the long run.

I really enjoy being challenged and pushed, because I feel that I improve and gain confidence within this process. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning and rehearsing all 3 pieces and I’m looking forward to performing all 3 pieces in the show on Saturday.

 Gemma Aubrey aged 15

Please Support WDFF 2012

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Workshops with FFIN DANCE

We hope that you can support our Festival and show these young artists that they have a future in the arts.  You can support by attending the Festival on November 17th at The Met in Abertillery or by making a donation to our future work with young people

Links:
Supporting the Festival
The Met Box Office