Together and Change Flashmob
Various locations were brought to a standstill by the vibrant Together & Change Flashmob over London Pride weekend.
In 2022 Combination Dance was commissioned by Richmond Arts Service and given a small budget to put on an open and inclusive participatory dance festival. The brief was to explore how to bring together the dance community in the borough and explore how grassroots organisations and professional dancers could collaborate. And so the nRich Dance Collective was born.
Fast forward 12 months and nRich Dance has had an unbelievably successful season. We delivered dance workshops of the Together and Change routine and then toured the performance at the Great Exhibition Road Festival, the Leadenhall Building (informally known as the cheesegrater) to celebrate Pride Month in June, and finally at the inaugural Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival. We also delivered an ambitious project called Smart Cells, Awe and Wonder in partnership with Imperial College London highlighting the amazing human immune system and raising awareness of blood cancer, Myeloma. The hard hitting and emotive performance had a mini tour to National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, the Great Exhibition Road Festival and Richmond Arts and Ideas Festival. More about this in a blog post to follow.
Richmond Arts Service approached nRich Dance and Combination Dance Company to produce a series of participatory and inclusive dance events as part of the Arts and Ideas Festival. The idea was to develop uplifting choreography that celebrated diversity, togetherness and kindness to coincide with London Pride.
Once again we collaborated with Damian Anyasi, a professional dancer specialising in whacking, who featured in the nRich festival last year. He enlisted some very talented vocational dancers from Kingston University to perform a section of the routine with him. We were also thrilled to involve the fabulous team at www.wearesynthetics.com to develop a section of the Together and Change choreography for the public and grassroots dance groups to participate in.
We were supported by Discover Twickenham BID (District Improvement District) lead by Amanda McLoughlin to help develop a storyline for the flash dance. The storyline theme of Together and Change is celebrating the vitality of Twickenham’s unique small independent traders including Sandy’s Fishmonger, Browne’s Artisan Butchers, Cooper & Sons Greengrocer’s, a variety of artisan traders along Church Street and other well known businesses in Twickenham.
The overall aim of the project was to promote the traders but also give visibility to minority groups including adults with learning disabilities and dancers from LGBTQ+ and gender non-binary backgrounds. Each group performed a section of the dance at different points along the high street which was great fun and shows what a vibrant place Twickenham is.
All of this was achievable because of the deep and lasting engagement Combination Dance has with community groups including Richmond RISE, United Response, KD Yoga and Our Barn Community, Ruils, Viva Dance for 50+ and Mencap. Many of these groups have been performing to the public once or twice a year for many years now so relished the opportunity to perform at festivals and other events this summer.
The video has reached thousands of people already and you can also watch it on a free BIG screen everyday during Wimbledon week and also before blockbuster movies at Diamond Jubilee Gardens, Embankment Twickenham, TW1 3DX. For the schedule go to https://discovertwickenham.co.uk/event/twickenhams-big-screen/
This project was supported by Richmond Arts Service, Imperial College London, Arts Council England, Discover Twickenham BID and Eastern London BID and achieved the following priorities:
☒ Enabling local people to develop, agree and deliver their own responses to local issues and building stronger communities
☒ Initiatives that promote the vitality of our town and neighbourhood centres
☒ Widening participation in sports and physical activity
☒ Enhancing the artistic and cultural offer and protecting the borough’s heritage
☒ Improving health and wellbeing
Combination Dance prides itself on all its programme of activity being safe, open and inclusive. If you would like more information go to our website at www.combinationdance.co.uk and finally if you want to learn the dance, watch the 15 minute tutorial below!