Dancing for Ulster: Instead of 'othering', dancing like no one is watching brings us together
WE ALL KNOW about the great leveller that is an Irish wedding dance floor. Everyone is their best dancing self at a wedding. No judgement, no right and no wrong, just dancing.
When people approach the Dance Corner and say “Ahh sure I can’t dance” I make it clear “There is no wrong dancing on the Dance Corner … there is only dancing.”
Most people know the old adage “dance like no one is watching” but many do not know that it’s part of a longer quote:
It is a call to self-expression, an invitation to act without fear of judgment.
Dance Corner was created very much in this vein. With the intention and drive to provide an open space for people to come together and dance like no one is watching … even though admittedly it is placed in public spaces: 26 locations over 32 days across the province of Ulster.
I have worked as a dancer, choreographer and facilitator for almost 30 years, after many years of dancing, I returned to education, to undertake Peace and Conflict Studies, during this time myself and my then girlfriend, now wife, discovered that we were having a baby, the first of four, leading us to return to my home place of Fermanagh.
The Northern Ireland I now experienced was different to the one I had left.
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