Evaluation - Still (2024)

After performing in the Autumn Festival for Norfolk Dance into the Fall in 2024, we wanted to evidence the significance for participants of the making of the work and the importance of performing for a live audience. We have documented and evaluated that experience by making an evaluative film. In this film, participants reflect on three key themes which captured their experience of dancing:

Being absorbed by dancing here and beyond: participants were wholly absorbed by the activity of dancing and performing, and were able to focus and concentrate on the movement they created. For some dancing transcends their everyday lives.

Feeling competent: participants felt a sense of wonder at their body moving and were inspired by their achievements. They express pride in surpassing their expectations of themselves as well as the expectations of others. Participants explain the power they feel in being seen by others.

Finding a place to belong: the participants felt that dancing together gave them a place to be themselves beyond the conditions they live with. They have permission to join in and a place to confront and expose their vulnerabilities whilst building trust through the social safety that dancing provides. These social and emotional outcomes ripple in and beyond dancing.

Directed and Choreographed by Rachel Canavan

Dance Education Research Elsa Urmston Phd

Sound Jules Maxwell