Gabrielle Vickery
January 6, 2025
LEAP
September 26, 2025ARCHIVE: Dance Re:Ignite 4.0
(September 2023 to August 2025)
Image Credit: Simon Richardson
OVERVIEW
Dance Re:Ignite 4.0 was a programme of dance activity, spanning from September 2023 to July 2025, that aimed to challenge the dance offer for 55+ year olds and disabled adults in Hertfordshire. It took place between. Building on previous iterations of Dance Re:Ignite, it hoped to increase the artistic ambition and demonstrate the impact of the work more widely across different sectors including Social Care and Sport. It took a hyper-localised approach to delivery across 6 towns in Hertfordshire, collaborating with local partners, local artists, volunteers, and leading national artists.
This is the fourth iteration of Dance Re:Ignite, founded on the need to provide a space for older people to have access to dance provision local to them. Furthermore, BEEE Creative identified that in order to enable this, better dance infrastructure needs to be in place. This does not just include the development of local dance artists but developing sustained cross-sector partnerships with organisations who work directly with and for older people.
AIMS
Dance Re:Ignite 4.0 aimed to increase the reach and access to high quality dance experiences for older adults and disabled adults in local communities in Hertfordshire. It aimed to increase the diversity of leaders of dance and develop the skills of dance local practitioners to attract less engaged communities in physical and creative activity.
HEADLINE FINDINGS
- Assumptions about older adults and disabled adults were challenged. Participants in the programme were challenged on assumptions about themselves and those they worked with. There was an increased sense of identity, with the dance workshops often drawing out hitherto unknown histories of those taking part.
- Wellbeing was impacted across the project. The Volunteer Dancers felt more connected to themselves, each other and their communities. The co-creation process enabled them to feel creative, have ownership of the project and valued for their contribution. Many felt good at being able to give back to the community. Benefits to wellbeing were also observed in those who took part as audience participants.
- Through the development of cross-sector partnerships, a greater reach and diversity of people accessed dance. In particular, older people in care homes and supported accommodation, often underserved were reached.
- Cross-sector partnerships were developed and strengthened, with 63% of partners new to BEEE Creative and numerous new to dance provision, and now increasingly likely to re-engage with this type of work again.
- BEEE Creative’s co-creation practice is central to the impact that it creates. It aims to provide as much as possible a space for co-creation in its delivery with participants, and furthermore works towards a co-production model, involving as many stakeholder voices as possible in shaping its projects.
- BEEE Creative has further developed its co-creation practice, better understanding the role co-creation plays across its work, its benefits, and its limitations. BEEE Creative has demonstrated how it builds the conditions to enable its co-creation ethos, and this project has demonstrated that through modelling its practice this ethos continues via its participants.
EVALUATION
A full evaluation report is available for this project >>
A behind the scenes project scrapbook is available for this project >>
PROJECT CREDITS
Dance
- Adriana Welham, Vida Wellness Club
- Carrie Washington, BEEE Creative
- Dawn Hudson, Trestle Arts Base
- Laura Horn, New Connections
- Louise White, Dacorum Community Dance
- Rebecca Benford, Full of Life Dance
Visual Arts
- Anji Archer
- Gabrielle Vickery
- Jane Glynn
- Katharine Harper
- Kathryn Holt
- Maxine Ellis
Music
- Alexander Eales
- Jenni Pinnock
- Jonathan ‘Stan’ White
- Malackey Henderson
- Peter Lemer
- Stuart Neale
Film
- Tom Hobden Dance
Wider Team
- Carrie Washington, Director
- Hannah Delaney, Project Manager
- Annie Smith
- Lo White
- Katie Williamson
Partners
- Age UK Hertfordshire
- Hertfordshire Sports Partnership
- Moving Memory Dance Theatre
- 44 Community Partners
The project was funded by Arts Council England, Dacorum Borough Council, North Herts Council, Watford Borough Council, East Herts Council, St Albans City and District Council and The Victoria Wood Foundation.
ADDITIONAL CONTENT
‘Small Joys’
‘Home to Here’
‘Stortford Scenes’
‘Aquadance’
‘What Am I Like?’
‘Stories of Change’
