Propel Dance’s first tour basically sells-out
This is a reflective blog about my experience of working with Propel Dance recently. I cover some key reflections and learning, include an account by DMU Dance student Molly Brunsdon (who undertook a placement with me working on this project) and some pointers for inclusive dance performance (that might be useful).
Please do read on if you’re curious about how we did it… (estimated read time: 10-15 mins)
Who are Propel Dance?
Propel Dance, the UK’s first and brand new professional all-wheelchair dance company, have now finished their R&D - a test tour of 3 performances of new work, The Snow Queen. A contemporary reimagining of the famous tale, it was co-created and directed by Helen Mason, with the dancers.
Image: Dani Bower Photography
Image shows dancer Rebecca Fowler playing The Snow Queen, on stage during performance at Midlands Arts Centre in April 2023.
Why is this a significant moment?
Well, for absolutely loads of reasons (like inclusion in ‘professional’ dance, representation on UK stages, employment opportunities…), but not least because this is the UK’s first. Yep, you read that correctly, a company of this nature hasn’t existed in Britain until now! That’s wild considering it is 2023.
Taken from our last press release that Claire our amazing Press Manager wrote, Helen, our AD said, “It still shocks me that this is the first time this has been done. We created Propel Dance because there are so few professional opportunities for wheelchair dancers, and we wanted to be that change; to create something that enables progression and inspiration for the future generations. To have performed our first shows of The Snow Queen to sold-out theatres and enthusiastic audiences has been an unreal experience. What a way for the company to start! It has been an absolute joy to witness audience members who knew nothing about us before now come and see what it’s all about. Our society is obsessed with what a dancer looks like, so we wanted to change that up. Not only for the dancers themselves and to create more jobs and a route into professional dance, but also for the audiences to see that they don’t have to look this certain way to be able to take part in this brilliant art form. We’ve challenged that stereotype of what society thinks a dancer’s body ‘should’ look like and we’ve created more diversity on our theatre stages in the process. We particularly chose venues that were able to take out some of their formal seating so that there were more spaces available for wheelchair users to come along. The dancers performed and portrayed the characters exquisitely throughout the run of shows, and I am so excited to see what might happen next for Propel Dance”.
Dancer Rebecca Fowler also said, “I am so proud to have worked with Propel Dance and to have been part of this ground-breaking project. Wheelchair dancers have been part of inclusive dance companies before, but it has been an honour to work in an all-wheelchair-user dance company and learn together as we created the show. Representation is hugely important, and to see people doing something on a professional level will send a message to other wheelchair users that this is something that they can aspire to and will hopefully create another generation of wheelchair dancers. What we’ve tried to do throughout this project is show that dance is for everybody, regardless of ability or disability, and we’ve taken it to the next level as professional dancers. Every audience member deserves to see themselves reflected in great art, and that includes disabled people, and I don’t feel that art really represents disabled people that well at the moment. This is the kind of project that pushes that forward. I hope this will create many more opportunities for wheelchair dancers and be the first of many shows for the company.”
In all then, I am very proud to have played my part in making a significant project such as this happen and in enabling the company to begin it’s work…
What were our key aims?
Our key aims for the project were ambitious and driven by our passion for creating a positive experience for our dancers. They were also informed by the fact that limited professional employment opportunities exist in dance right now. Yes, wheelchair dancers could go and work in London with the likes of Stopgap or Candoco - but where else? We also know that because very few wheelchair dancers appear on stage, on TV and in the media as professional performing artists in general. Therefore the importance of representation cannot be understated and the appeal of wheelchair dance, by an all-wheelchair company, presenting to disabled and non-disabled audiences is timely and critical. Timely also because earlier this year BBC Strictly announced that they might include a wheelchair user as a contestant on the show in 2023. The response online (that we saw anyway) wasn’t particularly warm. In fact the exact opposite, with some horrific commentary and resistance to it. This is yet more reason for Propel Dance to exist and do the work we’re planning. We had lengthy conversations with venues about accommodating more than the standard number of wheelchair users in our audiences to meet that aim - of including and welcoming wheelchair users into theatres where traditionally about 2-4 spaces are available per show.
As Co-Directors, Helen, Katie, and I were committed to providing exceptional support and care to our team, unlike anything seen in other dance companies across the UK. We prioritised flexibility and hybrid ways of working, enabling us to learn about the benefits and challenges of this approach while co-leading as a 3-way, all-female leadership team. Members of the team were based all over the country, and we maximised the benefits of co-working online as well in-person. Whilst another key goal was to base the company in the Midlands - because of all the barriers that London just is, ease of access and also that’s where most other companies are based, it felt right to create a home for Propel in Birmingham.
But our mission extended beyond creating a unique work environment for a team from all over the UK. We were also committed to taking and applying access consultancy to shape our project, ensuring that we were aware of and responsive to the lived experiences of people with disabilities. Not just lip service but realtime action and implementation. This is where Helen brought in Rick Rodgers, who is a Para Cheer World Champion, ex-Candoco artist and currently working with GB Fencing. Rick provided invaluable and exceptional guidance to us, across a range of challenges in this regard. We recognized the importance of succession planning and the need to tackle representation on multiple levels, which is why we are determined to create and provide training and on-the-job experience for disabled individuals. As Executive Director, I am committed to handing over the baton to a disabled person in the future. Our project is not just about creating great art, it's about creating a lasting legacy of compassion, inclusion, and empowerment.
Screen recording - an excerpt of the company’s live appearance on Channel 4’s Steph’s Packed Lunch TV show on 26th April 2023.
A special thanks go to the team who made it all happen, as listed here:
Helen Mason (Artistic Director)
Katie Stevens (Operations Director)
Rick Rodgers (Access Officer)
Elliot Mitchell (Company Stage Manager)
Wiktoria Grzes (Social Media Manager)
Molly Brunsdon (Project Assistant, DMU Placement)
Claire Lishman (Press)
Leanne Fitchett / Love Leanne Clothing (Costume)
Kris Halpin aka Dyskinetic (Music Composition & Producer)
Becky Matter (Dramaturg)
Rachel aka Violet Says Salon (Make-Up)
Kimberley Harvey(Creative Mentor)
Dani Bower (Photography)
Celcio Santos (Videography)
Marta Brinchi Giusti (Graphic Logo Design & Branding)
… All a very talented bunch without whom the show, as a sum of all these parts, would not have been possible. The dancers did an incredible job - we set the bar high with a 3 week rehearsal period (3 weeks?! Yes, only 3 weeks).
You can read more about the show on the Propel Dance website, including programme notes.
We’ve learned an incredible amount and only really just scratched the surface. The creative, production and touring potential for this show to go on and develop is massive, and we feel that this journey is the beginning of something special.
Molly’s reflections
“I am soon to become a graduate from a top BA dance course and despite the inspiration around me, it is hard not to evaluate why I have chosen to enter an industry notorious for being underfunded, undervalued, and seemingly extremely overpopulated with keen graduates that are just like me. Dance has been my whole life since the age of three, and yet justifying why I have chosen to enter the field is a daily occurrence.
It is expected from my parents and non-dancer friends that this piece of paper that proves my hard work over the last 4 years will be a secret key to being snatched up by a prestigious touring company. I am less interested in performance, and my placement with Amy has helped me to realise the many opportunities that lie outside of performance and are extremely exciting. I have mainly been working with Amy on Propel Dance. This was the creation of a show and company of the UK’s first-ever wheelchair dance company. It was super interesting to see what it takes to put on a show. As a volunteer, it was great to experience all of the smaller details that I would not have even thought would be part of this project. And there are a lot of them! As I have often been on the other side of the curtain, I had never been able to properly see all of the huge amounts of things that happen before opening night, and it was definitely revealing. Working with Amy and her colleagues has restored my faith in what my career could be.
The idea of being freelance feels quite overwhelming and is often perceived as unpredictable and unreliable. On this project, it was exciting to see freelance workers who are making money doing what they love and with so much passion and kindness. Supporting Propel has given me a small insight into how the world is not built with inclusivity. This means that the challenge to rehearse and perform a show in wheelchairs comes with a whole set of extra considerations. Keeping my craft inclusive is really important to me, and Propel has demonstrated a lot of extra ways for me to make it that way. Everyone on the Propel team is passionate about making the arts more inclusive and is happy to learn how to make it even more so.
The Snow Queen was an exciting, fun, and light project where you could sense it is only the beginning. We need to remember that The Snow Queen [as a work] isn’t aimed at dancers and people in the dance industry in general. The work was and is made for the huge percentage of the UK population that identify as disabled and might have never seen representation on stage like this before. The real stories of success are in the children who came to the show in their wheelchairs, and the audiences who traveled across the country because they had never seen a company that mirrored themselves. With Propel, and with Helen’s choreography, a wheelchair is a tool for creativity and new possibilities.”
Follow Molly on Instagram @molly.brunsdon
Key learning, my role: what I did and some BTS
In a nutshell, I supported co-founder Helen, who stepped up for the first time in her career as Artistic Director, with her initial idea to conceive the company. Helen has been working in inclusive dance her whole career (over 20+ years), and off the back of 6 successful years running her inclusive community group, Freewheelin’ in Birmingham - she decided it was time to act!
Fast forward in time and we (Helen, I and third Co-Director Katie) collaborated on the development and then writing of an Arts Council England funding application. We got the money and then it was time to start….! First thing to do: name the company. Give it a look and feel, start a new brand, get a logo designed and recruit a core team.
Image: Helen and dancers on stage thanking the audience at the last show at Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton (April 2023)
Supporting the start-up process then followed, which included everything from initial planning, partner expectation meetings, venue liaison, studio hire, recruiting the dancers, recruitment and selection: contracting the wider team & briefing them (who were all freelance), chairing fortnightly team production meetings, overseeing our communications (branding, website and social media) development. Katie and I also supported Helen with artistic selection of the dancers - we purposely chose not to audition due to the very format of auditions being inaccessible. So video & audio applications were reviewed and shortlisted by the team. We decided to share responsibility and to co-lead the company from the beginning. Broadly, we split our roles into: all things creative/artistic direction were overseen by Helen, all things operations with some logistics & producing taken care of by Katie, with me looking after the executive function (including safeguarding & HR), some producing and comms.
As I’ve already said, we learned loads but not least that working inclusively takes time. It takes care. And that we as a core team probably need to work on a project like this full-time to give it its due in the future. Working as a 3-way leadership team was an interesting thing in practice. 3 equal directors. Where do you see that elsewhere in the arts? We have a long way to go in regards to company structures & systems, including us Directors getting to know each other better around how each of us works.
Due to timescale and budget, Propel Dance isn’t yet incorporated. One of the downsides of being a freelance company (for now), means that people have other commitments and things that pull on their time. We learned that venues still have some way to go to be able to fully accommodate large numbers of wheelchair users.
Key considerations such as:
Access Riders used as a matter of course
Doorway and corridor width - to be measured accordingly and to be wider than each dancer’s chair
Floor lips between doorways - always check
Adequate disabled toilet facilities (more than one)
Enough space (in general) whilst on stage, backstage and in changing areas
Dance mat/no dance mat on stage causing extra grip or extra slip on wheels
Enough disabled parking bays located close by for ease of access and unloading
Working lifts (!)
Enough flexibility in the auditorium to accommodate a larger number of wheelchair audience members than an average dance show - removing whole rows works well
What’s next?
Well, some time to reflect and evaluate first and foremost. We gathered the views of 50+ audience members so that data needs analysing, we also asked our brilliant Creative Mentor Kimberley to gather insight from the dancers - enabling us to learn what worked well and what we need to improve in the future. A key aim was to ensure all needs were met and that the experience of working in and with Propel Dance was positive. We’ll continue to take solid and well-informed advice from Rick, our all-knowledgable Access Advisor. And then we’re into planning for national touring in 2024 and beyond, maybe we’ll make it abroad at some point?! Stay tuned…
If you’d like to chat to me about any of the above, me supporting your work, your new company, a business start-up process and/or leadership, please do get in touch by email on hello@amydaltonhardy.co.uk. I’d love to talk!