Summer 2023 Newsletter
Dear Gather Up Friend,
this is a much delayed newsletter - it’s been a busy time for the three of us and we are in the midst of wrapping up what has been an incredible two years of activity.
We’d like to use this opportunity to say a huge thank you to all of the teachers, hosts, ‘Library of People’ consultants and peers who have shared their expertise, skill, moves and wisdom in so many ways. And a massive shout out to our partners Bristol Old Vic, Arnolfini, Theatre Bristol and Bristol Dance Futures for their ongoing support and commitment.
We’re also incredible for all of the participants who keep showing up with open hearts, bodies and minds.
Our programme of classes has been incredibly popular and surpassed our expectations with mostly sold out classes - we’re super grateful for that. We know that it hasn’t always been easy to secure a spot for class - we thank you for your light heartedness around this, and for your ongoing commitment. The weekend workshops we hosted were equally popular and we were pleased to be able to offer an additional one at The Mount Without - these exploratory days have been amazing for us - thank you! We also very much enjoyed reading the creative response we invited from various participating artists for each of these workshops.
We were pleased to offer micro bursaries in the form of our Response Pot to 12 incredible artists and to share our Open Practice sessions with a bunch of you; our Library of People enabled us to connect with many artist in the city and region.
In the first year of our programme, we undertook some research into artist-lead initiatives and spent some time exchanging thoughts with 4 UK based artist-led organisations. This provided us with much food for thought, and allowed us to establish some beautiful connections. To encapsulate the research, we published a blog -written by Laila- which can be found here for your perusal.
More recently, we joined forces with Holly Thomas and Raquel Meseguer Zafe to help us look at improving access. With support from both ourselves and Bristol Dance Futures, they lead a day of training for 8 dance artists in Creative Audio Description(CAD), sharing skills about how best to provide CAD to visually impaired dancers. The day was full of great discoveries and learning. We have since been trialing offering CAD to our classes and workshops.
And last but certainly not least, it is with huge joy and relief that we announce that we have been successful in our bids to both the Arts Council and the Abderrahim Crickmay Charitable Settlement to run another two-year programme of dance activities!!! We’re absolutely over the moon and excited about this. We also acknowledge that this is a hugely challenging time for many - we will continue to work with as much care and support as we can, and look forward to being in touch in early September to announce our Autumn programme.
Please give us a follow here @gather_up_dance on IG or here @GATHERUP on Fb if you don’t want to miss anything. We’ll be back with morning class on Monday the 11th September and will announce this soon (via social media).
But for now we are turning our out of office on and taking a breather for the month of August before returning with a programme of activities for the Autumn.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
The Little Gidding - The Four Quartets - T. S Elliott
With love,
Laura, Laila and Katherine
Team GATHER UP