The Dance Network Association proud finalist in the Families Included Prize 

Hi there, my name is Gemma Wright the Artistic Director of the Dance Network Association, the county organisation for dance delivery in Essex. I am so proud that we have been chosen as a finalist for the Essex Prize Challenge for our dance and wellbeing programme. As an early year’s specialist myself this is an idea which I have been sat on for a number of years but unable to get going on the project until now with the support of the prize. We hope that the prize funds will support a long term programme that can be rolled out county wide from 2017 as I want to share with Essex how dancing with early years supports social isolation and childhood obesity – two areas of deprivation which threatens our county.

Our idea is to use dance and play as an interactive tool for childhood development and as a creative tool for parents. We also want to see social interaction between children and their parents and carers and for families to make new friends within the group. We want the families in the pilot project to help shape and steer how the classes are delivered and support our artist with the content of what they feel is most useful for them for us to design a full long term programme.

I have asked Lucy Blazheva to join me on this creative journey to design and lead our pilot sessions for the prize challenge. Lucy is a dance artist who has a wealth of experience of working with families and young children and is also the proud mum of a beautiful daughter. For more information on Lucy visit her website.

Lucy and I cannot wait to get dancing and meet with lots of new young families across Harlow in some usual and not so usual spaces for dance!

We will be uploading information to our website shortly about our pilot programme so you can get involved. Watch out for more information at www.dancenetworkassociation.org.uk

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