Children and Young People’s Dance Network North

The Children and Young People’s Dance Network North is running Northern Exchange  – a youth dance project running across all 3 regions (North East, North West and Yorkshire). The aim of the project is to nurture young choreographers, create stronger connections between youth dance groups across the north and to offer professional development opportunities for youth group leaders. By the end of the project the young people and youth leaders will understand best practice in youth authored work and advocate young people as artists.

We are offering this opportunity to 9 youth dance groups from across the north.

Exchange Day – 28^th May 2016
You will be invited to the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, the only dance conservatoire in the North, for an intensive day of sharing work, dance conversations, classes and choreographic workshops. By the end of the day you will be put into one of 3 groups with youth dance groups from each of the other regions.

Northern Exchange June – September 2016
Over the next 3 months, you will be given a small project budget and travel allowance to decide and plan your own exchange project for the 2 other youth dance groups to take part in. You will take it in turns to travel to each other’s towns and cities and by the end of the project you will have travelled to each region that makes up the North, made some new friends, learned new choreographic skills, created and shared new work and have a better understanding of what youth authored work is.

Criteria

• Your youth dance group must be based in the North East, North West and Yorkshire regions. Depending on the applications received we will aim to have 3 groups from each region.
• To be eligible your youth dance group will have performed in the regional or sub regional U.dance rounds but not shortlisted to perform at the U.Dance national event at The Lowry, Salford between the 8-10th July 2016. The work performed was choreographed by their group leader.
• The project is funded by Arts Council England so there is no cost to take part in this activity however you must commit to participating in the whole project.
• Successful groups will be allocated the same level of budget to plan their own Northern Exchange activity.
• There is a travel budget and this will cover a proportion of the travel costs for each group to attend the Exchange Day and to travel across the region to take part in their own Northern Exchanges. The level of support given to each group is dependent on the number of young people taking part in the whole programme and will be confirmed once we know the youth dance groups have been selected.
• You must be a member of the Children and Young People Dance Network. You can join by signing up from from our website. Click HERE to be taken to the Join page.

How to apply
For more information on how to apply go to our website. http://www.cypdancenetworknorth.org/#!northern-exchange/eegt5