project context

On the 23rd of October 2023, Greenwich Dance (https://greenwichdance.org.uk/), a power house of community and professional dance announced their permanent closure after 30 years of work due to funding cuts, including 100% of their funding cut from the Royal Borough of Greenwich. At this time I was assisting one of their dance for wellbeing groups, which took place every Wednesday afternoon in Woolwich library. When the participants learnt of the permanent closure there was a big mix of emotions including anger, sadness and confusion. But, what stood out to me the most was their eagerness to speak up. They felt compelled to fight against this outcome, and I felt compelled to give them an opportunity to do this. 

I took further inspiration from Greenwich dance’s CEO and Creative Director, Melanie Precious. Precious says in one of her final statements, ‘Sadly, it’s too late for Greenwich Dance. But please, do not allow more to follow in our wake.’ (2023). Having had experience at Greenwich dance as a participant (I took part in one of their youth school programmes as a teenager), and as an assistant, this statement also made me angry and sad and I sympathised with the participants. But like Precious said, this cannot be in vain.

This project was created to offer a safe and supportive space for participants to express their emotions through dance and multi-disciplinary approaches, to have their voices heard and navigate the response to the closure. The project aimed to use community dance as a form of gentle activism in response to the closure of Greenwich Dance as well as a place to protest against the ongoing funding cuts to community arts in the UK. The project aimed to provide the participants with a real life experience in which to critically engage with community dance as activism.