How Creative Dance 60+ got Tottenham dancing at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre!

[album: https://www.simonascotto.com/wp-content/plugins/dm-albums/dm-albums.php?currdir=/wp-content/uploads/dm-albums/Creative Dance 60/] We started a new project in October 2010 at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre having been approached by Jackie one of my students at Counterpoint Dance Company.  Jackie was very excited about bringing creative dance to Tottenham, she project managed the setting up of the class and gained an essential grant.  Everything was set and ready to go, we both pondered who if any were going to turn up!  Thankfully we’ve had a lot of interest and the group is as Jackie would say, “Going from strength to strength”!

It is a great privilege to work with such a diverse group, everyone brings a piece of their own background to the class and there are some really great characters!  The group acted as my inspiration for the pieces I created for the project finale.  We started by using the idea born from watching Alvin Ailey’s piece “Revelations” and we managed to get similar fans from America but instead of only yellow we got other vibrant colours too.  The piece developed further and one of the participants, Ruth offered to design the umbrella held by Pew, which was the prop for the procession section.  I thought that it would be great for the dancers to do some freestyle movement hence the idea of the Blue and Yellow cloths. They worked as background to the unravelling pool of amazing movement material.  We involved the audience and Mayor Eddie Griffith danced with us too!  And to finish a great event we all went for a party and enjoyed Gina’s amazing nibbles and Caribbean cakes!

*Photos courtesy of Jo Alexander