From the Archive: Dance Factor Lincolnshire (2015)
15 mins read time
I was recently invited to speak at a Lincolnshire One Venues event in Lincoln. It was a brilliant chance to share some knowledge but importantly, catch up and network with old friends and arts sector colleagues from my time spent living and working in Lincolnshire.
Inspired by a chat with the brilliant Simon Hollingworth aka Mr Holly during the LOV event, we reminisced together about Dance Factor Lincolnshire (he produced it for us). That chat has rekindled some fond memories about an absolutely banging project if I do say so myself!
In total, I spent nearly 10 years working with Arts Council England combined arts NPO artsNK (now Hub-Dance), working across North Kesteven district in mid-Lincolnshire as well as further afield across the county - including with Transported. During that time, between 2009-2018, the dance team that I led produced multiple performance projects a year to and with 100s of young people. artsNK built a 25 year reputation for dance in the community and I still am super proud of all we achieved - for my decade’s worth of input into that legacy. The dance team’s achievements were celebrated formally when in 2016 we won a National Flame Award from UKActive for Shaping Young Lives.
One particular project from the archive is Dance Factor Lincolnshire. It was a mass participation project to, for, with and by young people aged 11-19 years from a range of backgrounds, who lived across the county. It had incredible engagement outcomes AND social impact. Subjective, yes but this video says it all:
Short impact video sharing highlights of the project, made by the brilliant Electric Egg.
This project is probably the biggest in scale that I’ve led to date. A career highlight that thanks to chatting to Mr Holly, I’ve been able to re-remember how good it was.
Why am I reflecting on it now? Well, because with the knowledge and experience I have now, 8 years later (what?!), to think again about to the successes of Dance Factor Lincolnshire, makes me 1) realise we had no idea how ahead of our time we were 2) we really nailed mass participation across multi-locations in a vastly rural area 3) we learned alot about the needs of young people, engagement and giving young people inspiring, aspirational experiences that they felt a belonging to 4) if I was to fundraise/lead on a project like this now, I’d smash it out of the park because it literally ticks all of ACE’s Let’s Create boxes!
I wouldn’t do much differently because this is an engagement model that fundamentally works - if the numbers and experience is anything to go by. But here are the things I’d develop or change:
Train the team of dance teachers for longer in authentic hip hop techniques as well as choreographic skills; this would include a thorough education on the origins of each style - I would do this for any dance style tbf, to support each artists creative toolbox and to support legacy, skills development and CPD.
Consider access at the front and centre of the project - we already ensured transport barriers were as reduced as possible by providing transport options, and the project was offered free to all to take part. But, we should go further than that and increase access so that more young people who identify as d/Deaf, disabled and neurodiverse can take part on their terms. Specialist training might be needed for this for local artists, and we would need to extend our outreach to settings where disabled people live, meet, work and study. This will allow us to reach yet more young people.
Build in pre- and post-project activities to be able to signpost young people to ongoing dance opportunities meaning that they can continue to move/dance/be inspired for longer. We achieved this to some extent after Dance Factor in 2015, for example, later that year the 3 ‘winning’ groups got the opportunity to perform alongside Diversity at Lincoln Castle’s Magna Party, and in 2016 we secured further funding to bring the DF Party back and took it to Skegness Embassy Theatre! But as for regular dance classes, it was patchy at best thanks to the rural area and poor transport options, lack of resources and limited infrastructure. It is critical to build in legacy options over the long term and to have well-resourced celebratory or ‘coming together’ moments - like a performance in order to build collective solidarity - memories that many young people will remember for a lifetime.
Evaluate the social impact so that we glean data around benefits. More data = more money.
Train up a team of young co-producers to co-deliver the project with us.
Image: Electric Egg
So, what made it special and how did it work?
Well firstly, like the image above shows, I wore many hats during the project - including show host! Loved it!
In all seriousness though, my role on this project included (before it became an opportunity for artsNK) was dance teacher. I had previously taught on the project as a freelancer, long before I even dreamt of becoming lead partner! Over time, my role evolved into Project Director; a role that included fundraising (more on that later), oversight of a large delivery team, oversight of marketing & comms functions and partnership management.
2008-2013
The history and context for Dance Factor was set by the City of Lincoln Council, who conceived the original project and had previously run multiple iterations of Dance Factor before, as early as 2008. Prior to 2015 the council partnered with Alive Church’s young people’s strand Energise and Zest Theatre, two prominent youth-focused organisations in the city. The project initially focused on dance as a positive diversionary activity, thanks to ACE, sports development and Neighbourhood Renewal funding, just for young people based within the city boundary.
2014 onwards
After lengthy partnership talks with City of Lincoln Council’s cultural development team in 2014, I grew the project outside of but still including the city - as it had a really brilliant reputation with local young people - and then sought to bring in new partners to expand it. We first ran Dance Factor in 2014 at Lincoln Arts Centre, as a test to see if it could be scaled up, and invited Hakeem (in the video below) up from London to be our guest host. Guess what, we quickly realised that it was scalable and then onwards and upwards it went….!!!
Grainy phone video (sorry!) - sack the videographer (me). Here is Hakeem doing his audience participation thing during Dance Factor 2014 at Lincoln Arts Centre.
Later that year, funding comes knocking and voila! A bigger, broader project was born with a big ambition to reach young people in urban and rural places across the county. A marrying of the city council’s ambition to keep Dance Factor going (and sustainable) as well as rapid growth in its county-wide footprint. If anyone knows anything about Lincolnshire, you’ll know that it is a vast county - in fact the second largest county in England with an area of 2,687 square miles!! No mean feat at all.
Dance Factor’s strap line started as Get Up, Get Out & Get Active! which soon evolved to Dance Factor is taking over Lincolnshire...think X Factor…think street dance…think Dance Factor!
Straight-up facts about the project
Total Budget: £75,000
Number of Partners: 12
Number of Young People Engaged: 427
Number of Workshops (total): 304
Number of Places with a Dance Session: 29
Total Team: 24
Total Audiences: 1,700
Total Young Participants now working in dance professionally: 6
Funding
Dance Factor Lincolnshire wasn’t funded by ACE - instead the team and I won £50,000 from the Big Lottery Fund’s Peoples Millions vote. That’s right, we campaigned hard on 23rd November 2014 for our shot at the money. The video below gives a flavour of the campaign - every show, event, meeting I attended or email that I got, we asked for votes! We rallied friends, families, celebs, participants in our classes, dogs and more to support us!
Project Format - how did it work - project aims?
It was important to City of Lincoln Council to keep the project’s identity - so we worked with the existing brand, logo & format. Following a sporting competition format, Dance Factor enabled young people aged 11-18 from across Lincolnshire to get involved in free street dance sessions over 10 weeks, presenting their work on a professional theatre stage, to professional judges and a public audience in a Semi-Final - ending with a battle to be crowned Dance Factor Lincolnshire Champions in the Final!
Thirty new street dance crews are formed across Lincolnshire, we managed 29 in total
Each crew had ten weeks of rehearsals with a professional dance teacher, the team were recruited from across the county and onboarded with initial training & a full briefing
All crews competed in a local semi final event to win a place in the Dance Factor Lincolnshire Grand Final - each crew creates their own name and identity, with a logo designed by a graphic designer
Successful crews at the semi-final go on to compete in the Grand Final event held at a professional theatre venue
One group is crowned Dance Factor Lincolnshire Champions by a panel of dance industry experts, with visiting MC & guest host Hakeem Onibudo and his semi-professional company who performed as a headline act; Fully Functioning Individuals.
Partners
We were pleased to have the support of the following partners, many of whom contributed cash and/or in-kind support to help make the project a success:
Transported (Creative People & Places Project)
City of Lincoln Council
Boston Borough Council
South Holland District Council
North Kesteven District Council
North Hykeham Town Council
Leisure in the Community
Positive Futures
Sportivate
1Life
plus, presenting venues as part of Lincolnshire One Venues network:
Terry O’Toole Theatre, North Hykeham
Lincoln Drill Hall
South Holland Centre, Spalding
Grantham Guildhall
Trinity Arts Centre, Gainsborough
And, finally the venue for the final with the biggest capacity around Lincoln!
Acknowledgements
The project wouldn’t have been the success it turned out to be without the talent, energy and commitment from the following people…
Alice Carter (Dance Factor Project Manager) a talented member of the artsNK dance team.
The other members of the artsNK dance team of that time, who really were a joy to lead and manage (not just in that year, but every year): Holly Arnold, Emma Cox (nee Terzza), Michaela Soltys, Amy O’Sullivan. And later: James Kitney, Emma Bouch, Emily Luce (new Sutton), Sophie Arnold, Matthew Pratt, Rachel Twell (new Edmondson).
All of the other dance teachers across Lincolnshire!
Simon ‘Mr Holly’ Hollingworth - Producer
All of the other judges including Jasmine M Eccles, Taiwo Bamiduro, Rae Piper, Paul Chantry & Ruthba Choudhury.
Hakeem Onibudo - Final Co-Host along with his company Fully Functioning Individuals from Impact Dance
Who wants to collaborate on another mass-participation project….?
All you need to do is tell me where and when!
Email me and lets chat (we’ll chat even if you just have some reflections on what is written here!): hello@amydaltonhardy.co.uk