U.Dance County Selections..

My life has become very busy with Christmas around the corner especially with my bar job taking the majority of the spare time I have right now. Spending a considerable amount of time having a think on what I would like to blog about has been frustrating, whilst I have mentioned on a few occasions that this blog has become a 'personal journey' in it's every right but I am really trying to sit and write something interesting HONEST.

So I have decided to talk about my experience of being on the U.DANCE  COUNTY SELECTIONS the other week as part of my Young Associate Programmer for a dance organisation in Nottingham, especially that now the groups who have been chosen to represent their county have been informed of our decisions. So I spent 4 days watching A LOT of footage from young people, it's such a hard process. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to see what work was being created across the county in particularly through mainstream education. It isn't often that we are able to witness and fully appreciate the work created through those settings and the great work contributed by both dance artists AND the young people. It was just as much when we saw community groups working together to create great pieces of dance work, this is why platforms like U.DANCE are so important in existing.

I worked through application forms from Leicestershire and Rutland, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire as well as Birmingham. Birmingham's selection process was a lot different as the chosen applicants would go straight to the Regional Event MY Dance in April whilst the other 5 counties have their own county platform performances first.. CRIKEY!

I now have the task of programming the Fringe Festival events for MY Dance in April, I can't even begin to explain how terrified but excited I am! I'm totally up for the challenge just going to need A LOT of Tea and Cake in 2015! 

I really enjoyed being able to contribute my own feedback towards decisions made and my own creative mind in discussing the possibilities in how a piece of dance could develop in the future (whether it's taken into note or not). It gives me a lot to think about in terms of how I would feedback work in the future and the effective ways of accomplishing this!

I look forward to 2015 and watching the selected groups perform live and see how their journey after application forms has developed! 

I am very excited to continue writing about this journey as a Young Associate Programmer with Dance4.