DanceEast YouthFest – Jerwood DanceHouse, Ipswich

DanceEast YouthFest is returning to the Jerwood DanceHouse on Ipswich Waterfront on Saturday 9th November, 1 – 5 pm. Now in its third year, this half day event is a celebration of all kinds of dance and movement, programmed by and for young people aged 14 – 25 years who live in and around Ipswich.

You don’t need to be a dancer to come to this event, or to reserve or buy tickets. It’s a free, drop-in format, designed for every young person who enjoys or is curious about any form of dance, whether for fitness, leisure, or as a careers option. It’s also a great way to meet some dance industry professionals and discover what they do.

However, the main purpose behind this event is for all young people, whether you dance or not, to come together to highlight and to experience the joy and power of dance and movement; what dance gives us as individuals and communities, how it makes us feel, and how it can be used to connect us.

YouthFest event programme offers a mixture of activities to get you moving, such as 45-minute workshops offering yoga, tasters of different dance styles (including Contemporary, Bollywood, Jazz Commercial Fusion) and interactive dance sessions. Rebecca Pell Evans and Simon East will deliver a Wearable Interactive Sound Session, exploring ways of making sound with movements, using a Flowfal smartwatch to generate, manipulate and move sound around to different speakers, from a flick of the wrist to more complex choreography.

At the end of the afternoon, the festival DJ will be encouraging everyone to hit the dancefloor.

For young people interested in other forms of creativity around dance, there are also movement drawing/sketching workshops by Olivia Starr, a stage costume dress-up corner with styling support, and a catwalk opportunity. The festival will screen dance films and display artwork and photography by local young artists. Arts and crafts materials will be available so you can create your own ‘Dance is…’ themed artwork to add to the community gallery.

The YouthFest Planning Team of four are Millie Powell (who was a student at DanceEast’s Centre for Advanced Training before going on to become a BA Dance graduate, and DanceEast Audience Ambassador), Marni Cady-Heffer (a BA Dance graduate and Boost recipient at DanceEast), Cara Storer (a Fine Art and Art History graduate, and
Ipswich Museums Young Associate), and Faith Foster (an A Level Dance student currently at Suffolk One).