Everybody Dance Now

Everybody Dance Now involved people from all generations – as well as six European youth theatre groups and other community groups from across the City.  In August 2011 the project culminated in a week-long international festival.

Inspired by London 2012, Central Youth Theatre wanted to create a project that celebrated their city’s dance culture leaving a positive impact in the local community and beyond. In early 2010 they began the long, slow process of making many funding applications with the idea of creating something fantastic in Wolverhampton.  With the ever deepening effects of the recession being felt all around the city they realised, even more, how important this project would be for the city of Wolverhampton.

DSC_0501

A vision was created for an international festival in 2011, bringing the hospitality and excitement that so many CYT members had experienced abroad, to their doorsteps. As part of the West Midlands Dancing for the Games programme and building on the strength of our skills they had gained in former projects – they began a process of interviewing people from across the City about their memories of dancing over many different decades.

These memoires were bought to life through:

  • An exhibition and an interactive website.
  • A spectacular transformation of the former Low Level Railway Station Specially commissioned scripts bought to life by their young members in a celebration of social dance through the decades from the 1920s to the 1970s.
  • A festival week  involving international youth theatres and local community dance groups who staged performances in various theatres and public spaces across the city.
  • The festival was topped off with a series of four huge social dances at the Wulfrun Hall, where the festival participants and general public danced the night away to the sounds of big bands and cultural bands from Eastern Europe, Ireland and the Caribbean.

CYT has always been dedicated to the development of its members, and a major part of the project was giving opportunities for young people to have apprenticeships and work experience alongside all the artistic professionals who worked on the project – in areas as varied as writing and directing, to costume design and event management.

DSC_0297

 

Other Groups Involved

  • Kuumba Arts Movement, UK.
  • Theatre of One Poem, Poland.
  • Art Studio Kambana, Bulgaria.
  • Valiant Company, Lithuania.
  • Hop Hop, Czech Republic.
  • Grenztänzer, Germany.
  • Theatre Am Gym, Austria.

Keep up to date with CYT

Sign up to our email list for up to the minute news about our shows, events, theatre workshops and offers.

We'll never share your details with third parties. You can unsubscribe at anytime.