FIT AS A FIDDLE KENT ~ dancing for the Over-50s.
REPORT from John Sweeney, Contrafusion
| Last year we spotted an item in a SEFAN e-newsletter about Age UK's lottery-funded Fit as a Fiddle programme, promoting physical activity and well-being for people over 50, and decided to apply for a grant. |
Penny, who runs SEFAN, helped us to get through all of Age UK's paperwork and we were given a budget to run eight free dance sessions at the Stour Leisure Centre in Ashford on Thursday afternoons.
We advertised it as “Free Dancing for Over-50s: Come and learn a wide range of wonderful dances, from 17th Century Jane Austen style dances to 21st Century Ceilidh Dances, including American Contra Dance, English Barn Dance, Contra Waltzing and the Polka!”.
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We were delighted when we had 36 attendees, from ages 50 to 90, at the first session on May 7th, then word spread and we had 53 at the second session!
Over the eight weeks we had over 100 different people join us for a dance.
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| At each one and a half hour session we did six dances, giving the dancers a broad experience by including a contra dance, a Playford dance, a circle mixer, a ceilidh dance and a waltz-time dance, plus some polka and contra waltz tuition. They rose to the challenge, danced beautifully and had great fun. Because of the demand we have continued the dances on a chargeable basis every Thursday afternoon and they are still running successfully. See Contrafusion website for details |
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Hopefully these will be equally successful and we will continue to run regular sessions in Maidstone - check at www.contrafusion.co.uk
to see what is happening in 2012
In August we received funding from Age UK to do it all again in October and November 2011 on Tuesday afternoons in Maidstone at the Hazlitt Theatre. |
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It has been a wonderful experience, bringing the joy of so many types of dances to so many people; and many of them are now venturing out to try other dances in the area.
John & Karen Sweeney - Contrafusion
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