Dance Conversations
Dance Conversations: Performance Group is a welcoming space for anyone who loves movement, creativity, and collaboration. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced dancer, this group offers a chance to explore contemporary dance in a supportive, playful environment.
Each week, we meet to experiment with movement, develop improvisation and technical skills, and work together to create original performances. Sessions combine fun, guided exercises with collaborative choreography, allowing every participant to contribute their ideas and grow as a performer.
Our current cohort includes residents from Crystal Palace, Penge, Croydon, and Sydenham, reflecting a mix of ages, backgrounds, and dance experience. We meet at Upper Norwood Library Hub.
Previous projects include Conversations (Community Dance Film), Storyland (performed at RichMix and Stanley Arts), Can We Meet (Community Dance Film), and Fears and Dreams, performed at Stanley Arts and the Croydon Dance Festival.
The sessions a chance to boost your wellbeing, relieve stress, and connect with others through creative expression.
Term bookings available HERE
Trials available HERE
Work created by Dance Conversations participants:
Fears and Dreams
While the future is difficult to imagine, preparing for it is also vital and needed. Through this work we would like to consider what we can expect from the future on a personal level. Which part of it can we design individually and which will we be able to build as a community? Join us as we try to collectively find how we can be prepared for tomorrow, having lived through things that seemed impossible and unimaginable before.
Dancers: Naomi Barnard, Nathalie Brady, Magdalena Szulc, Ellie Stevens, Luli Segal,Mary Waddams, Rebecca Vincent
Choreographer: Ania Straczynska in collaboration with the dancers
STORYLAND
"moving, relatable, genuine"
''each character was celebrated through its story''
premiered Spring 2022 at Richmix
Storylandis a journey through memories and stories of people just like you. From light reflections to personal discoveries, from those in our imagination to those very real, they create a landscape that is almost impossible to unpick. We all seek to keep only those that nurture us but, often those that we want to escape from really connect us with one another.
Dancers: Naomi Barnard, Chloe Bowman, Isabella Nilsson, Luli Segal, Rajinder Sodhi, Ellie Stevens, Magdalena Szulc, Mary Waddams
Choreographer: Ania Straczynska in collaboration with the dancers
Production Support: Upper Norwood Library Hub
CONVERSATIONS
This project invites members of our local community to participate in three 2h dance workshops introducing the basics of contemporary dance and choreographic tools. The three workshops, held once a week, culminated in a weekend of filming. The dance film produced was inspired by pre-collected interviews with our community, reflecting on lockdown experiences and daily routines during the pandemic. This project is a celebration of togetherness yet champions individuality. We have brought together 9 women of various ages and from different backgrounds. They met weekly and together devised choreography that caries a notion of community and cohesion.
Dancers: Imogen Bland, Mary Waddams, Suzie Partridge, Rachel Kerrison - Evans, Nathalie Brady, Alice Jemima Haddock Mary Moran, Katerina Papagianni, Gretha Gauhe.
Choreography, direction and editing: Ania Straczynska
Music: Galina Rin
Camera Operators: Galina Rin, Riamu, Rosa Wang, Ania Straczynska
Photography: Kamila Gorecka
Commissioned by Upper Norwood Library Hub
Funded by Arts Council England
