BIG Dance 2014 saw dancers aged 7-70 take to the streets of Newcastle on Northumberland Street and at Eldon Square Shopping Centre as part of a National initiative.

BIG Dance culminated with The Big Dance Weekend 12-13 July 2014 – 48 hours of ambitious new dance commissions in public spaces and iconic locations.

The programme was delivered by the Foundation for Community Dance in partnership with Greater London Authority and 21 Big Dance Hubs, 13 of which are in England: East London Dance, English National Ballet, Dance 4, Dance City, DanceEast, Dance Fest, Dance South West, Greenwich Dance, Merseyside Dance Initiative, Sadler’s Wells, Siobhan Davies Dance, South East Dance and Yorkshire Dance.

For the event Dance City created a large scale piece to perform at Northumberland Street and at Eldon Square.  A choreographer oversaw the process and created the links, working with 6 dance artists from across the region.  Each area was supported by a dance artist based within our ‘dance hub’ venues for 10 weeks to work with up to 20 young people to create a section of the piece.  The piece had a professional element which linked the sections together from all of the different areas.  The large scale region wide piece was performed on the days and other community groups also joined in the fun, showcasing their work with an open public platform to really take dance to the heart of the city.

Statistics & Successes

100 dancers performed in the large scale piece, a further 110 performed with other groups to audiences of up to 500 pedestrians. Workshops also got passersby involved and moving.

Supported by