8th February 2024

As we enter our third year of working with Blessed Trinity College, Belfast on the Creative Schools project, we look forward to an exciting new phase of the rewarding intergenerational work with Newington Day Centre.

Workshops with Sheena and Sean are taking place throughout January and February and focus on the “The Story of Who We Are”.  The aim is to show the voices and faces of North Belfast through dance, portrait photography and creative writing.  This week the Trinity students got to talk to the members of Newington Day Centre about their past and then they represented the history of North Belfast together through improvised dance.

Here’s a fun fact about our project participants – the oldest group member was born in 1932 and youngest born in 2009!

Thank you to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Education Authority and Urban Villages for this opportunity.

6th February 2024

Last Tuesday we were delighted to welcome over 50 guests to join us for our inaugural short film event at The Strand Arts Centre.  By sharing the five films, we hoped to showcase the range of our dance work and how we advance dance as an artform using it to build community connections, foster tolerance and respect.  The evening was hosted by Board member Tom Hughes:

and each film was introduced by someone who had participated in the making of it.  The films we screened were:

-A Chance To Dance: Celebrating how age is no barrier to dance featuring Alternative Energies, our intergenerational project in Ballycastle was introduced by Deborah Hamilton, our Youth Engagement Project director:

-Little Stranger: A film on the plight of unaccompanied child migrants which was introduced by Sheena Kelly, Community Engagement Artist who was integral to the film:

-Ode to Gaia: Celebrating the diversity of a group of women who have chosen to live in West Belfast coming together to dance, share and create was introduced by two participants Halla and Carole:

-The Effect: The last in a series of films with young carers and young people referred to social services as needing support.  This dance film explores how some of these young people feel and our Artistic Director Mags spoke about the real impact the project made on the participants’ self confidence:

-Tribe: A look at the dance performance which broke ground for Belfast Boys taking them to the prestigious U Dance showcase. Tribe show how friends and community are key to every young adult achieving their highest potential and Belfast Boy dancer Oisín introduced the film and spoke about why he enjoys being part of the group:

The audience feedback was fantastic!:

“The scope of the work is amazing and so personal, moving, important and uplifting.”

“Wonderful to see the support that Dance has.”

“Really insightful and impactful on the work that DU Dance do!”

“It was a most interesting showcase of the cross-community work undertaken by DU Dance. It was wonderful to hear of the personal development showing in the faces and work of the dancers, young and old.”

“It was brilliant to see the films and the work you do.”

“I found it really moving and impactful- loved hearing the participants voices and stories in…A Chance to Dance.”

“I liked every film but was moved to hear of the west Belfast group, the Little Stranger group and the achievements of the young carers dance.”

“It was really uplifting to watch the results of such important work presented in such beautiful forms.  The range of groups and participants and the clear pride and pleasure everyone had gained from the work was great to see.  It was also good to have the introductions to each film, setting them in context.”

Thanks to all the team, but especially Creative Producer Gina, for pulling the event together.  Let’s do it all again next year!

On Sunday 4 February, Debs – our Youth Engagement Programme Director – was delighted to attend Belfast Cathedral’s annual Good Samaritan Service and receive a grant award from the 2023 Black Santa Sit Out Appeal.

This year’s Sit Out raised over £171,000, all of which has been shared out among over 130 local charities.  This generous donation will immensely benefit Alternative Energies, our intergenerational dance programme in Ballycastle.

17th January 2024

Please RSVP to gina@dudanceni.com so we can have an idea of numbers expected on the night.

12th January 2024

Enjoy this short film of our wonderful Day of Dance 2023.

Held on Sunday 3 December at the Brian Friel Theatre in Belfast, all our Youth Engagement Projects came together for a joyful celebration of dance.  Have a look!

11th January 2024

January proved the perfect time to launch the next phase of the community dance artist training programme – just before a busy year of classes and projects begin.

So delivering on our commitment to provide exciting opportunities for collaboration with fellow practitioners in community dance, we were delighted to welcome Robby Graham, award-winning choreographer and Artistic Director of Southpaw Dance Company, to host a two day workshop.

Southpaw Dance Company is based in Newcastle, England and, under the artistic direction and unique vision of Robby, who is originally from Omagh, the company creates epic visual spectacle and dynamic physical storytelling sequences in which movement, music, and dialogue are seamlessly integrated.  Southpaw is well known for its mass movement projects such as Rush bringing together both professional and community casts to create high quality and innovative work.

“So pleased to be back home sharing Southpaw’s process of co-creating with community. We had a fantastic few days together exploring choreographic processes. Projects like this are vital, allowing space for artists to develop their practices and create the next wave of brave and ambitious work.”  Robby Graham, Artistic Director, Southpaw Dance Company

A group of 13 community dance artists met at The MAC, Belfast to start their new year refreshing their own practice and filling their creative cup. Robby generously took us through his artistic process for co-creating with communities, highlighting the importance of facilitating the community voice and ensuring due diligence in the research and development stages to ensure communities are represented appropriately.

“Excellently set up by DU Dance NI, and the delivery by Robby was highly informative, professionally delivered and Robby showed a significant emphasis on the needs of the group and on feeding the group with guidance, tools and experience in preparing and working with communities.”      Participant

Not only does this training programme ensure that community dance artists in Northern Ireland are able to keep their practise up to date, the programme also creates an informal network of local community dance artists who can learn and support each other.

“Maintaining connections with local artists, opportunity to be part of that larger dance community and revising and developing skill sets in the area of dance within the community.” Participant

If you are a community dance artist and are interested in finding out more about the programme and further professional development opportunities with DU Dance NI, please get in contact with sheena@dudanceni.com

4th January 2024

Happy New Year! We are back to work and raring to go here at DU Dance as Robby Graham, Artistic Director of Southpaw Dance Company, joins us to deliver the latest element of our community dance artist training programme.

Over the next two days, 15 artists will work with Robby at The MAC Belfast to explore co-creation in an outdoor context with community and professional casts.  As he shares his artistic process for mass movement projects such as RUSH we are excited to learn more about ensuring meaningful engagement and high quality work.

You can explore Southpaw’s wide range of work, including RUSH – a spectacular, visceral, large-scale outdoor work inspired by the mass movement of global protest, incorporating 100 local community cast alongside Southpaw’s company dancers, on their website.

We will be sharing more from the training sessions so watch this space.

23rd November 2023

It is that time again (can you believe it!) when we all come together for one of our most favourite events of the year – DAY OF DANCE.

This year all those involved in our Youth Engagement Projects will be travelling to The Brian Friel Theatre at Queens University Belfast on Sunday 3rd December for the annual gathering.

For most of our Belfast Boys it will be a short journey across the city whilst the Sutemos and Suteminis groups will be travelling from Dungannon.   And…drum roll please…. this year we are thrilled the lively Alternative Energies group in Ballycastle will be heading down the M2 to join the fun.

It is always a wonderful day with sharing workshops which culminates in a performance for family and friends.  And it wouldn’t be Day of Dance if there we were not expecting loads of yummy festive treats and, of course, the annual Christmas dance off!

9th November 2023

Belfast Boys have been invited to perform at the Christmas lights switch-on in Belfast city centre on Saturday 18th November.

They are working on an upbeat routine guaranteed to warm the crowd and get everyone moving. With the Lord Mayor of Belfast in attendance, a preview of the Lyric’s Christmas show and a medley of other local performers on stage at the City Hall,  ‘Let’s Glow Belfast’ is sure to be a lot of a fun!

Full event details can be found HERE.

26th October 2023

We are getting ready for the next stage of the Cultural Bridge project, which celebrates bilateral partnerships between the UK and Germany, and heading back to Leipzig for the first of two professional exchanges.  This will be an exciting opportunity to delve further into what we can learn from each other and how our organisations can be part of a positive social change.

Alongside Darren Ferguson from our Northern Ireland partner Beyond Skin, Sheena and Mags will spend three days hosted by German partners VILLA Leipzig looking at organisational practices and procedures, visiting current projects and seeing first hand the implementation of the artistic methods they deploy.

Our colleagues at VILLA Leipzig, a socio-cultural centre, have an exciting schedule planned with a visit to their popular Open Stage music event, a meeting with the facilitators of the Junior Team to understand their motivations and methods and how they implement political education and participation and finally a visit with the theatre and music pedagogics and the Open Youth Work.

It will be a busy and insightful few days as we exchange ideas, reflect on the ‘Ode to Earth’ project and explore the next steps in strengthening our partnerships.

To learn more about the ‘Ode to Earth’ project, read Sheena’s blog and watch the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s film.  Simply click HERE or on the photo below.