Over 50 Look Ahead customers threw some shapes this month in specialist dance studio workshops at East London Dance in Stratford as part of our AnyBody Can Dance project. The Stopgap Dance Company led three sessions offering different activities to customers based on their needs, including sensory activities with scarfs and other materials, and opportunities to show off their own moves.
AnyBody Can Dance is a programme offering weekly therapeutic dance workshops to customers from our learning disability and mental health support services which first started back in 2022. The overall aim is to build our customer’s confidence as they move towards more independent living, and to offer them health and wellbeing-orientated activities.
The project launched new sessions this year with funding from Arts Council England, and the project has reached new heights and is bigger than it has ever been before, engaging a total of 24 services so far.
Georgina Caird, Look Ahead’s Dance Movement Psychotherapist (RDMP) who leads on the project said:
“It was really encouraging to see so many of our customers enjoying the therapeutic dance workshops, feeling so confident, and expressing themselves in the process. That customers from so many different services interacted, socialised and cheered each other on during the sessions was truly the icing on the cake for me.
“This project has been an opportunity for the people Look Ahead supports to unlock and showcase their talents to their peers and a wider audience. I would also like to thank the talented facilitators from the Stopgap Dance Company and our hosts East London Dance for their roles in the day and we hope to collaborate with them more regularly going forward.”
