nRICH Dance Autumn Newsletter

This Autumn’s Top Stories

THIS AUTUMN’S

TOP STORIES

1. NRICH DANCE FESTIVAL’S ENGAGEMENT

This summer has seen a series of very enjoyable dance events take place across Richmond upon Thames under the banner of NRich Dance, a new commission awarded by Richmond Art Service to foster collaboration across the dance ecosystem. It concluded in September with our partners Combination Dance, Boundless Arts and Marble Hill Dance Studio facilitating dance workshops at Richmond Live, a celebration of music, dance and theatre in Richmond upon Thames. The participants, including 17 adults or teenagers with additional needs and 22 children, performed in the grounds of Marble Hill House in front of the Mayor and enthusiastic crowds.

nRich Dance’s partner organisations enjoyed testing the new format, namely a participatory dance festival. The festival ran a series of dance events, in venues including Richmond and Hillcroft Adult Community College (RHACC) and Richmond upon Thames College. The events included workshops in a variety of genres for the general public to attend, facilitated by highly professional dancers, followed by public sharing and live performances. Combination Dance has partnered with Roehampton University to plan and evaluate the festival. The engagement figures are really positive and the evaluation report shows that nRICH Dance has been very successful at fostering collaboration. Full report will be made a available to partner organisations on request, and if you’d like to watch the videos made of the events then click the links in the body of text - they are really fantastic to watch!

2. FUNDRAISING CHARITY GALA DINNER

Our Barn Community is one of nRICH Dance’s partner organisations - you will remember Kelly kickstarting the event at RHACC with a lovely grounding yoga workshop. Many of the adults with additional needs that attended the event are direct beneficiaries of Our Barn Community’s charitable programmes of activity. They specialise in helping young adults with disabilities and/or autism and their carers.

Our Barn Community is celebrating its 10th birthday and they are putting on a fundraising gala dinner on October 29th. The celebratory dinner will be a chance to shine a light and focus on the amazing work and achievements of the charity over the past 10 years. There will be an exciting line up of awards presented, their youth club will perform, and DJ TBS will play some favourite tracks. There will be a photo booth and an awesome raffle on the night. There will also be a quiet zone available.

To book your tickets and find out more, scan the QR code that is in the flyer below or visit here

3. YOGA AND UNIVERSAL PERSONALISED CARE

Within the UK, we are witnessing an ageing population, soaring levels of non-communicable diseases (aka life style diseases) e.g. diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depressions and anxiety and how these NCI’s are a real burden on the NHS. The Personalised Care Institute set up by GP’s and other health professionals wants people to become invested in their own health at an earlier stage, so not just seeking health care when they have serious issues i.e. they want health to become a shared responsibility. The healthcare landscape is changing and GP’s are more often prescribing walks in nature, gardening, yoga as incredibly effective tools to reverse poor health. The evidence is mounting and the research is clear that interventions like nature and yoga have a huge impact on mental and physical wellbeing

Kath (Dance Manager at Combination Dance) has been voluntarily teaching yoga for a charity that sits squarely in the social prescribing sector - Dose of Nature - a local charity specialising in taking clients into nature to overcome a range of mental and physical health issues. Dose of Nature has been signposting their clients to Kath’s yoga classes throughout the summer. The yoga classes have been outdoors in beautiful natural settings and the classes have shown in a survey to have a therapeutic effect on clients’ overall sense of wellbeing. The classes are designed to meet the needs of people who wouldn’t ordinarily find yoga, or may have barriers to attending yoga classes, and they help people avoid chronic health conditions, lessen their effects, or recover from them.

Kath welcomes people to her classes who have not come via social prescribing and would like to explore how yoga can help them. Her groups practice outdoors when the weather is warm and dry, and move indoors nearby to natural environments at other times of the year. Yoga in combination with spending time in nature has been scientifically demonstrated to have incredible health benefits, as it can heighten your senses and awareness both within and your immediate environment, leading to inner calm and a feeling of being centred.

“Yoga is one of many brilliant solutions to the long term challenges our health system faces. I find it incredibly rewarding teaching yoga to people who have come via social prescribing. Seeing changes, sometimes profound changes in my clients, is a wonderful thing to see.” Kath

To find out more about Yoga by Nature’s classes click below and you are welcome to turn up and pay on the day.

4. NEW DANCE CLASSES TIMETABLE

Combination Dance’s Adult Dance Company, VIVA, has weekly classes every Saturday from 11am - 12pm at Up and Running in Teddington. The classes are designed to develop technique, strength and flexibility. We include contemporary and jazz techniques, and there is an optional public performance or filmed performance once or twice a year to add excitement and a challenge! For more info click the button.

COMING SOON - New VIVA adult dance classes for beginners are starting in January from 10am - 11am. Please register your interest by emailing Anne-Marie at info@combinationdance.co.uk

RELEASE, REBOOT, RECONNECT - Mostly chair based dance classes for adults with mobility issues take place over Zoom every Monday from 1.30pm - 2.30pm. These classes are designed in consultation with a number of physiotherapists and nurses to gently mobilise the whole body and improve the body and mind connection. The classes include breathing techniques and mindful activities and some great tunes! Please register your interest by emailing Anne-Marie at info@combinationdance.co.uk and also some free spaces are available; normal fee £5

5. THE NEXT DANCE FORUM

We are starting to cook up ideas for the next dance forum where grassroots dance groups, amateur dance enthusiasts, dance professionals and dance students can come together share ideas, learning and relationship building, all with a view of breaking down barriers and collaborating on dance projects in the future.

We hope to book a venue in Twickenham or Richmond either side of Christmas. So nRICH Dance partners, please get back to us with your availability via WhatsApp as we’d love to have as many of you attending as possible as we know you want to have more time together to talk through ideas.

Keep an eye out for the next newsletter with more details on the Winter dance forum. Until then, enjoy the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness ❤️