As part of our Encounters – Celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee event on 11th June, Folk Dance Remixed will be joining us to perform their amazing Step Hop House piece, Ceilidh & Street Dance the Maypole Workshop.

Folk Dance Remixed are a groundbreaking company creating unique fusions between Folk and Hip Hop styles with live music. Led by Artistic Directors Kerry Fletcher and Natasha Khamjani, the company rediscover old traditions through contemporary forms.

Their piece, Step Hop House is a fresh, quirky, colourful and magical collision of traditional and Hip Hop dance and music: high-energy, with a unique remix of Maypole, Clogging, Ceilidh, Street, House and Breakdance with a hint of African & Bollywood… to a live soundtrack of fiddle & beat boxing – this is Folk and Street Dance like you’ve never seen it before!

Folk Dance Remixed will be performing at 11.45am & 2.30pm for people in Woking Town Centre – don’t miss their incredible performance!

For more information on Encounters – Celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee visit our events page where we releasing more information shortly.

Photo Credit – Folk Dance Remixed, Paul Brock, FDR – Frances Watt, Steve Eggleton.

Dance Woking Needs YOU!!!

We are recruiting volunteers to help with the running of our incredibly exciting event on 11th June. Volunteering with us offers great opportunities for skills development and will give you an insight into how an organisation like ours run events. It’s shaping up to be a fun packed and enjoyable day and we would love for you to join our team!

You can find more information about Volunteering with us on our opportunities page

Last week we announced that we have been awarded a grant from Arts Council England’s Let’s Create fund to help create an event to honour and celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

We are thrilled to be able to announce that we will be using the grant to fund the creation of a day of dance in Woking Town Centre on Saturday 11th June!

The outdoor event will showcase dance in it’s many forms with performances from community dance groups, a professional performance from Folk Dance Remixed, dance skills workshops hosted by the Dance Woking Outreach Team, a Ceilidh for shoppers to join in with and an opportunity to try Maypole dancing.

One of the many highlights of the day promises to be schools from across Woking Borough coming together to perform a very special piece to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Choreographed by Emma Brewer, the performance takes us on a journey through musical history and includes some old favourites and sees over 150 school children of all ages come together for one energy filled performance!

Folk Dance Remixed, a quirky colourful dance performance group that brings a magical collision of folk dance and hip hop dance will perform their piece ‘Step Hop House’ twice during the day. They will also facilitate Maypole Workshops, suitable for all ages and a fun ceilidh for all to enjoy.The day is shaping up to be a fitting celebration of our royal monarch and her love for the arts. We look forward to you joining us to celebrate her in style!

Dance Woking’s Encounters – Celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee

Saturday 11 June

From 10.30am

Visit our events page for more information!

The Dance Woking Outreach Team visited Westfield Primary School this week to lead and facilitate a carnival themed Dazzle Day for the entire school! Held over two days, all participants learnt a carnival dance which culminated in a whole school parade in the playground at the end of the day. The workshops were full of creative movement, props and enabled the school children to have some fun with their class mates.

Dazzle Days are new to our expanding outreach programme for local schools and enable schools to offer an ideal enrichment day opportunity.

Ellie Dowling, Engagement Manager said “Dazzle Days are a fantastic opportunity to unite year groups or even the whole school in an immersive, cultural activity. An asset to any enrichment week, our Dazzle days have been extremely popular in the Summer Term with focus on Carnival and Jubilee themes. Participants often enter the workshops a little unsure but leave bursting with energy and excitement, only to be followed up with a confidence boosting group performance or parade at the end of the day”

For more information on our Dazzle Days, please contact Ellie Dowling.

Dance Woking has been awarded a grant from the Arts Council’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund by Surrey Community Foundation – ensuring that creativity plays an important role in local community celebrations for Her Majesty The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The Let’s Create Jubilee Fund will ensure that thousands of people from communities all across England will have the opportunity to take part in exciting creative events – all in celebration of the Platinum Jubilee.

Dance Woking will use the grant to fund the creation of a day of dance performances in Woking Town Centre on Saturday 11th June. Encounters – A Celebration of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee will showcase dance in many forms with performances from local dance groups, professional performances from Folk Dance Remixed, dance skills workshops hosted by the Dance Woking Outreach Team, a Ceilidh for shoppers to join in with and Maypole workshops.

One of the many highlights of the day promises to be schools from across the borough coming together to perform a very special piece to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Choreographed by Emma Brewer, the performance takes us on a journey through musical history and includes some old favourites as well as sign language and will see over 150 school children of all ages come together for one energy filled performance! The children have been taking part in weekly dance classes as part of the Dance Woking Inspired Learning programme and are excelling at learning all the different dance styles ready for their performance.

Folk Dance Remixed, a quirky colourful dance performance group that brings a magical collision of folk dance and hip hop dance will perform Step Hop House throughout the day as well as facilitate Maypole Workshops for all to enjoy. 

Sam McCaffrey, CEO of Dance Woking said “we are thrilled to have been awarded a grant from the Arts Council’s Let’s Create Jubilee Fund by Surrey Community Foundation. This is an amazing opportunity to showcase our local talents and take part in this national celebration.” 

More details will be released later this week about the day but we can’t wait to celebrate in style this Jubilee month!

The Let’s Create Fund was made possible thanks to National Lottery players and administered by UK Community Foundations on behalf of the Arts Council, the Let’s Create Jubilee Fund will support a huge range of projects throughout England. 44 community foundations have been awarding grants across the country. 

Darren Henley, Chief Executive at Arts Council England said “The Let’s Create Jubilee Fund is a wonderful example of our ambition to give everyone the opportunity to participate in and experience the arts, culture and creativity – made possible thanks to National Lottery players. This June, we’ll see communities across England coming together to celebrate a historic milestone for this country. I’m excited to see these projects brought to life in villages, towns and cities across the country as our wonderfully creative communities celebrate The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.” 

Rosemary Macdonald, CEO, UK Community Foundations, said: “For community foundations, people and places are the priority and the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is a unique opportunity for people to get together and celebrate in their communities. We are proud to have connected Arts Council England with local organisations whose imaginative and exciting projects and collaborations with professional artists will bring communities together to enjoy marking this milestone moment in our history.” 

HM The Queen Elizabeth II is the first monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee, having overtaken Queen Victoria as the longest reigning monarch in 2015.  Her reign has been marked by a commitment to public service, reflected by her extensive programme of engagements at home and abroad, and support for over 600 cultural organisations, charities, military associations, professional bodies and public service organisations. 

Dance Woking are thrilled to be working with Active Surrey to facilitate inclusive dance sessions as part of Woking’s Surrey Youth Games Programme. The classes will run over 7 weeks and will culminate in a performance at Surrey Sports Park on 18th June celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. Held at Sheerwater Youth Centre every Wednesday, the students are excelling at trying a new sport for the first time and are looking forward to their big performance! Look out for more details on the Surrey Youth Games soon!

The Specsavers Surrey Youth Games is the largest multi-sport youth event of its kind in the South East of England, offering FREE local training for those taking part. This unique programme brings together 6-16 year olds from Surrey who often don’t have access to the sort of sporting opportunities that others take for granted. For more information on the games visit the Surrey Youth Games Website

We gathered some of our outreach team together prior to the start of the Summer terms for a training session last Thursday in preparation for a busy and exciting term.

The team will be heading into partner schools leading our Encounters programme, Hunky Dory Dancer Clubs as well as dazzle days and Surrey Youth games across many locations in and around Woking.

With plans to celebrate the Queens Platinum Jubilee within our school programme our training covered new event choreography, introduction to sign language, movement and lots of shared experiences. It was brilliant to be together again and we can’t wait to see the progress as they return to our partner schools this week!

Thank you to the team for attending and to Associate Artist Tilly for leading the session.

Keep your eyes peeled for our plans which will be revealed soon!

If you’d like to hear more about joining our Outreach team of teachers please visit our Opportunities page.

Dance Woking and a few of our partners were lucky enough to go and see Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker at The New Victoria Theatre when it visited town last week.

With family-sized helpings of Bourne’s trademark wit, pathos and magical fantasy, Nutcracker! follows Clara’s bittersweet journey from a darkly comic Christmas Eve at Dr. Dross’ Orphanage, through a shimmering, ice-skating winter wonderland to the scrumptious candy kingdom of Sweetieland, influenced by the lavish Hollywood musicals of the 1930s.

With a reimagined set, the bright production was so inspiring to see and it was wonderful to see a few of the artists that joined us on our Doorstep Duet tour last August perform on stage once again!

It was a wonderful treat for a Tuesday night and a privilege to see the last stop of the nationwide tour!

The Dance Woking team facilitated another successful Hunky Dory Easter Holiday Club over 4 days of the Easter break.

The holiday club was possible thanks to funding, provided by Club4, that enabled us to host our popular Hunky Dory Holiday Club this Easter. Held at The Maybury Centre in Woking, the 4 day provision was facilitated by our highly experienced team and provided participants with a full day of dance, arts & crafts, fun and a hot meal every day too!

It was so lovely to have some some Easter fun with the participants and we can’t wait to see them all again soon. Take a look at some of our highlights below!

We are now in the process of planning our Summer holiday clubs. If you would like to hear more about out holiday provision please join our mailing list.

More than 100 young people took to the stage for Woking SLAM 2022, an urban-style community dance platform on Saturday 2nd April.

Vital Signz, LDA, Holly’s School of Dance, Jenny Reeds School of Dance, The Urban Dance School and BKD performers returned to Rhoda McGaw to showcase their skills at our SLAM platform. The sold out performance was full of energy with audience members and performers alike exclaiming how wonderful it was to be back on stage!

A massive thank you to the dance schools who took part.

Are you a local dance school and would like to benefit from being showcased on our platform? You can find out more about the listing service and member benefits here