East London Dance's Dance Enterprise Ideas Fund Winners Announced

The Dance Enterprise Ideas Fund awards six outstanding dance creatives at the 2017 Dance Enterprise Ideas Summit, hosted by East London Dance.

Bursaries totalling more than £20,000 were awarded to six outstanding dance creatives, with a further four projects offered in-kind support, at the 2017 Dance Enterprise Ideas Summit, a day-long event on Friday 31 March, hosted by East London Dance at Stratford Circus Arts Centre.

The Dance Enterprise Ideas Summit is an annual event offering artists, producers, venues and organisations from East London and beyond the opportunity to share and exchange enterprising ideas in dance.

The afternoon session saw 23 shortlisted artists, selected from 69 initial applications, pitching their ideas to the Dance Enterprise Ideas Fund voting panel representing the funding partners: Ruby Baker from East London Dance, Ellen Chambers from Dancers' Career Development, Fleur Derbyshire-Fox and Patrick Harrison from English National Ballet, Pooja Ghai from Theatre Royal Stratford East, Eva Martinez from Sadler's Wells and Jonny Siddall from Redbridge Drama Centre. They were joined by non-voting panellists from the supporting partners: Andrew Hurst from One Dance UK, Carla Trim-Vamben from University of East London and Jasmine Wilson from Studio Wayne McGregor. The pitches showcased a raft of innovative and exhilarating dance projects and enterprises that will be developed over the next few years, and six fund winners and 4 in-kind support winners were announced.

Polly Risbridger, Director of East London Dance, said: "The Dance Enterprise Ideas Fund panel were delighted with the quality of the ideas being pitched today, and to see the pitches delivered with such panache. The ideas were testament to the creativity, entrepreneurialism, and generosity of the UK independent dance sector, and each and every one showed such passion about the impact they wanted to make. It was an extremely tough decision making process but the selected ideas demonstrate an eclectic and diverse range of projects that have huge potential for the future. We can't wait to see where they go next."

Fund winners:

Rashmi Becker
Project: Step Change Studios

Awarded £4,720 and in-kind mentoring support from One Dance UK to launch London's first Dance Company dedicated to inclusive Latin and ballroom dance, including providing disabled and non-disabled people the chance to learn in an inclusive environment and to have opportunities to perform and compete.
stepchangestudios.com

Sharon Davis
Project: JazzMAD - Jazz Music And Dance Co.

Awarded £1,440 to support research and workshop concepts for a dance production featuring authentic swing and jazz dancing in East London in 2018, and to produce a short film capturing the results of this process in order to promote authentic jazz dances.
jazzmad.co.uk | @jazzmadlondon

Mars El Brogy / Salah El Brogy Company
Project: Organic Entity

Awarded £3,000 to support the rehearsal and production of a pilot event focused on a triple bill of new works by three dance artists working as a pop-up collective, individually exploring the topical subjects of mind, body and transcendence.
facebook.com/OrganicEntity | @melbrogy

Emma Houston / Emma Houston Dance Company
Project: Breaking & Vogue: The Purple Jigsaw

Awarded £1,500 and in-kind mentoring support from One Dance UK to research the development of a piece of breaking and vogueing dance theatre work into an educational resource for young people at risk from isolation and mental health and sexuality and/or identity issues.

Jo Rhodes
Project: Challenge 59

Awarded £5,000 to create an educational resource to support a schools-based collaborative digital dance project bringing together dance, film, education and health sectors to help raise awareness of healthy living amongst children in East London.
@jo_rhodesdance

Tom Rowlands-Rees & Clint Sinclair / Cinema Kpatakpata & Rain Crew
Project: Boiled Heads

Awarded £5,000 to begin building a grass roots platform for dance battles that elevates the artform with a promotional focus on the dancers' personalities to ultimately bring both the professional and grassroots dancer community to a wider audience.
cinema-kpatakpata.com | @tomrrees | @clintsinclair

In-kind support Winners

Carolina Adewale
Project: Where are the black dancers in classic ballet?

English National Ballet offered in-kind support to develop an online platform for the entire dance community, but especially black dancers from all around the world to access information about black practitioners and black audience engagement with classical ballet.

Lisa Hood / Avant Garde Dance Company
Project: Untitled

University of East London offered in-kind support to test technology and participation programme ideas in support of a new dance project exploring themes of social inequality, political and societal structures, and how they affect the values and interactions of different communities, in person and online.
avantgardedance.com | @AvantGardeDance

Joe Garbett / Joe Garbett Dance
Project: doubles - Ping Pong vs Dance

Studio Wayne McGregor and Redbridge Drama Centre offered in-kind support to research, develop and test a site specific dance theatre performance based around community concrete ping pong tables, involving bats, balls and four dancers, to encourage communities to come together to enjoy art, sport and healthy living.
joegarbett.yolasite.com | @joegarbettdance

Jessica Wright & Morgann Runacre-Temple / Jess and Morgs Films
Project: Digital Dance Resource Pack

English National Ballet offered in-kind support to create and develop an education resource for young people to make dance films, getting those both with and without prior dance engagement thinking creatively and using the language of dance to get inspired about filmmaking.
jessandmorgs.com | @jess_and_morgs

Photo credit: Ben Stanley

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