24th February 2020
Last week, we had the pleasure to welcome Hayley Aldridge, one of our Youth Board members, in the Motionhouse office for a week-long placement.
Find out more about Hayley’s experience shadowing our Creative Learning Producer Amy Dalton-Hardy in the great blog she wrote!
“When I used to think of Motionhouse, I thought of extremely talented dancers and thrilling performances, but now when I think of Motionhouse I think of all the amazing stuff that also happens off stage! The stuff that we as an audience member do not get to see. The audience sees the dancers perform beautifully on stage, but they don’t see what goes on behind the scenes that goes into every performance and every community class, which is what I got to experience this week.
Shadowing Amy-Dalton Hardy, the Creative Learning Producer, and Becky Knight, Dancer and Community Teacher, has taught me that it’s always very busy in the office and studio. From webinars (who even knew that was a thing??) to meetings, from community classes to fundraising, from marketing to programming and rehearsals….and so on!
Watching the dancers rehearse WILD was captive-ating (pardon the pun..if you’re a Motionhouse fan I’m sure you’ll get it). I watched Motionhouse perform WILD a few months ago at Royal Spa Centre in Leamington Spa, it was mind blowing but it was just as incredible to see the dancers training on the WILD set in a rehearsal setting. On stage, the movements appear effortless and almost easy, but this week I saw just how much training has to go into one specific movement. (P.S If you haven’t already seen Motionhouse performance WILD….you need to!)
For the last two days of my placement, I spent a lot of time observing Motionhouse Youth and getting a few shots of them in action! They were chucking each other all over the place, it’s really nice to see that the youth dancers get to experience what it’s like to be a part of Motionhouse and experience some of the more crazy movements. I’m sure their performance at Move It will be unbelievably incredible.
There is much more to Motionhouse than meets the eye, and I’ve seen how they are helping people in more ways than you could imagine, from youth dancers, to high school kids, to over 60’s, to aspiring performers, to people struggling with mental health and disabilities. And everyone deserves to know the amazing things that they are doing for the community. Get involved! Go and see a show! Donate! If this week has taught me anything, it’s that dance helps people, and so can you!”