I have enjoyed my first week at Dance in Devon very much! All of the staff are very friendly and have guided me fantastically through working on a Windows PC. (I am an avid Mac user at home). I have learnt how to use both Microsoft Publisher, Twitter, and Google Calendars. Many thanks to our administrator Kate, for putting up with endless questions and meltdowns at the laptop, with the patience of a saint. Thank you!

Unused to having such a small staff team, I got an introduction to all of Dance in Devon’s exciting projects, and the upcoming calendar. I was shocked at how far ahead the team plan for events such as workshops and scheduling community performances. So much detail goes into organising one day. As a dance artist I have attended a few of Dance in Devon’s events and so, it’s very interesting to see how it is organised on the other side to make it so successful.

This week, I have also been lucky enough to assist Clare Parker, (Dance in Devon’s Torbay Champion ) in teaching her sessions at Mayfield’s school. Mayfield’s School is a school in Torquay that is committed to the education of children with both learning and physical disabilities. I am lucky enough to have had much experience in prior jobs of working with children and adults with varying disabilities. I was very excited to marry together both of my work lives in these sessions. Working with Clare, I realised how difficult it must be to prepare sessions with little or often no prior knowledge of the group.

Thinking on her feet Clare led a warm up, based namely on improvisation and technique- plies, and warming up the spine, all of the muscles and joints. The children responded incredibly well- enjoying the music and listening carefully. As the session progressed we spent time working in pairs creating shapes and moving around, through and over them. Unfortunately, the sessions are 45 minutes long, and with all of the introductions at the start, we ran out of time. I look forward to building relationships with the children and to work together on a small sharing to show at the end of the sessions.