Looking ahead

 ‘12 Moves’ is a Worcestershire dance project inspired by ‘Dancing for the Games’, and produced by Dancefest, the dance agency for Herefordshire and Worcestershire. The Cultural Olympiad provides a significant platform to think beyond the project’s conception and funding, giving rise to five key aspirations regarding its legacy. By acting as a collaborative catalyst Dancefest hopes to: provide a lasting mechanism for cross-sector partnership; share resources; attract new money to the arts; create a portfolio of hard data about the benefits of dance; and put Worcestershire on the cultural map.

The project deploys two ‘dance squads’ throughout the county. They work to encourage a variety of hard-to-reach groups to take up dance. Local people are programming the squads’ time, based on their needs.

By working in this way, groups have been able to get to know each other, work together and share existing resources such as venues, marketing and transport. Each partner gains something through the delivery of this project. This includes a shared menu of new and existing dance activity; non-arts groups developing new strands of provision with financial support and access to dance expertise in the early stages; and healthy living being promoted. By having a partnership-inspired, organisation-led project there has been much greater return on investment: smaller pots of money are pooled to contribute to a larger partnership-led investment and project outcome.

This is the first time an arts organisation has received health funding from Worcestershire County Council, and it is important that a case for future cross-sector investment is made. The University of Worcester is leading the evaluation, collecting qualitative and quantitative data on the outcomes of the project. Several themes run through the evaluation, including physical and mental health and well-being, in relation to working with hard-to-reach groups.

The artistic strand of the project is being led by digital film artists SDNA, who are creating an artistic campaign with guerrilla projections and shop window installations, all leading to a theatrical finale event. Although the work is intended for outdoor presentation at public events there is scope for there to be permanent installations as a legacy to this project.