Rachel – Page 13

I packed my passport and traveled as far afield as Telford, Stoke-on-Trent and Dudley to document the work that the ‘Dance Artists in Residence’ (DAiRs) were doing. The 2007 Tour was the culmination of over two years of dance development work in five areas across the West Midlands. The range of activities is too broad to list here (I’ve now added an Arts and Performance page with further information), but it was so inspiring to see just how much young people benefited from the workshops and performances. As with so many projects I work on, the team running and implementing the programme were great to work with, all credit to them for the positive comments from the young people!

This project was the first one I’ve done with a two camera set-up of a performance. In spite of a few technical hiccups, the end result looks really quite swish! In addition, the DVD features an interactive menu featuring informative slides. Really useful for getting across some of the nitty gritty facts and figures!

The past five months have been incredibly busy, mainly editing, so my plans to Blog regularly have fallen by-the-by somewhat! I’m taking the foot off the pedal a little bit after too many weekends and late nights at the computer, so I think that this is probably quite an apt point to report back on some of the projects that are now in the can or are near completion.

Posts on some of my recent projects should follow shortly, but in the meantime here is the lowdown on a recently completed project, ‘Yards Ahead 07/08’ for Yardley Constituency Libraries.

I’ve now updated the site and created a separate Libraries page to include information on all of the work I’ve completed for the rather lovely librarians, so you can find out a bit more about the project there. As always, it’s been a real joy to work alongside such dedicated and enthusiastic library staff, whose commitment has meant that thousands of children and their families have had really exciting library experiences. I’ve received a lovely e-mail from Jo Avery at Glebe Farm Library commenting on how well the film captures the enthusiasm of the children. However, as with all of the work I’ve done with them, walk into a Yardley Library and it’s pretty inescapable!

The film was premiered at a Chief Librarians’ conference in Solihull and was well received. Librarians will now be distributing the 200 DVDs I’ve produced to a wide range of people to try and convince others that this way of working can play a crucial role in ensuring libraries meet the needs of local communities now and in the future.

Author: Rachel

DanceXchange project

Yards Ahead 07/08