Gathered Together 2024 - Scotland's Only Inclusive Dance Festival
Gathered Together 2024 - Scotland's Only Inclusive Dance Festival
Gathered Together 2024 is set to run at Glasgow’s Tramway from Wednesday 4 - Saturday 7 September, bringing together a diverse array of inclusive dance companies and artists through rich presentations of performances and workshops.
Companies and artists taking part this year come from New Zealand, South Korea, Columbia, England, Scotland, Spain, Japan, Australia and Sweden.
Hosted at Tramway, the venue holds a special place in the history of Indepen-dance with over 25 years of its work being presented on all its stages. All performances will be BSL Interpreted and Audio Described.
Karen Anderson MBE, Artistic Director, Indepen-dance said: “Gathered Together 2024 brings together a diverse array of inclusive dance companies, independent disabled dance artists, and those working in inclusive dance. Through a rich programme of workshops and presentations, participants will have the opportunity to share skills, techniques, and knowledge. This year's programme will feature local and international guests, including artists from Sweden, Australia, and Japan. Our performance programme is equally exciting, showcasing local inclusive dance companies from across the Central Belt alongside international performances by disabled artists from New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, and Colombia.”
She added: “We are delighted that Gathered Together is at Tramway as it holds a special place in the history of Indepen-dance with over 25 years of our work being presented on its stages.”
For information and booking of workshops visit:
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/gathered-together-2024-workshops-3429509
Gathered Together 2024 is set to run at Glasgow’s Tramway from Wednesday 4 - Saturday 7 September, bringing together a diverse array of inclusive dance companies and artists through rich presentations of performances and workshops.
Companies and artists taking part this year come from New Zealand, South Korea, Columbia, England, Scotland, Spain, Japan, Australia and Sweden.
Hosted at Tramway, the venue holds a special place in the history of Indepen-dance with over 25 years of its work being presented on all its stages. All performances will be BSL Interpreted and Audio Described.
Karen Anderson MBE, Artistic Director, Indepen-dance said: “Gathered Together 2024 brings together a diverse array of inclusive dance companies, independent disabled dance artists, and those working in inclusive dance. Through a rich programme of workshops and presentations, participants will have the opportunity to share skills, techniques, and knowledge. This year's programme will feature local and international guests, including artists from Sweden, Australia, and Japan. Our performance programme is equally exciting, showcasing local inclusive dance companies from across the Central Belt alongside international performances by disabled artists from New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, and Colombia.”
She added: “We are delighted that Gathered Together is at Tramway as it holds a special place in the history of Indepen-dance with over 25 years of our work being presented on its stages.”
For information and booking of workshops visit:
https://www.eventbrite.com/cc/gathered-together-2024-workshops-3429509
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm Iona Taylor. I am a wheelchair dancer as a part of Independence.
00:04What does dance mean to me? Dance means that I can be free.
00:10I feel like when I go on that stage that there's nothing else going on in my life.
00:15I've always, always enjoyed it and it's the one thing I couldn't live without
00:20and that's why I knew I had to get back into it.
00:23And I'm so lucky I found Independence because I don't think I would have
00:27properly ever got back into dance again. Sitting in a hospital bed being told,
00:32going from a dancer at college to being told I couldn't walk again
00:37was definitely like, well I don't know what to do now, I've lost dance.
00:41But a really good way with Independence is we do online classes as well.
00:45So there's hybrid classes, some classes are online.
00:49So even if you're worried about leaving your house
00:52and you don't want to come straight into a class with all these people,
00:55you can start online or you can come in and do a taster.
01:00The reason we're inclusive is that anyone can join
01:03and we'll work a way out for you to attend that class.
01:07This festival is really important to me.
01:11It's an amazing opportunity for all the dancers and to be able to
01:16connect people around the world. So I'm doing a piece with LPM down in England
01:21and Conquer Paz in Colombia. And I mean, where do you get to collaborate with those people?
01:27Never really. And we're getting to create that this week and then perform it on Saturday.
01:32So it's really just opportunities that you don't usually get,
01:35especially people with disabilities. We don't get these opportunities.
01:39So it's really, really got to grab it.
01:41Every single person is unique and they all bring their own thing to the dance
01:47and it makes each piece just so beautiful.
01:50My overall hope as a dancer is to show that even though I have a wheelchair,
01:56I'm not restricted to it. There's a big thing about the fact that we're just stuck to our
02:02wheelchairs. So a lot of the dancers, I come out my wheelchair and I do some work on the floor
02:07and I'm not, we don't come together. We're separate things. And yes, I need it.
02:13But I think that's a big thing to show to people is that,
02:16you know, I'm not, I'm not my wheelchair. I'm an individual person.
02:20My name's Karen Anderson. I'm the founder and artistic director of Independance.
02:28Gathered Together is Independence's international
02:33inclusive dance festival and it's its fifth iteration.
02:38The festival's happening at Tramway and it happens from today,
02:42the 4th of September until the 7th of September.
02:46The festival has brought together people from across the globe actually.
02:50So there's companies from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden,
02:57South Korea, Spain, England and Scotland. People will see a variety of contemporary dances
03:05from all the different companies, but mainly contemporary dance.
03:08But of course the main key thing is that it is, and it does involve people who dance differently,
03:15who move differently. Independence has been hosting
03:19the festival since 2014. It's a biannual festival, so it happens every two years.
03:25So it's spanned 10 years now and I think that we are proud to say that it is
03:32the only inclusive dance festival in Scotland of its kind.
03:37It is gaining recognition internationally as well, just by the types of people that are
03:43requesting that they want to come and share the platform with us and I think that's really great
03:48and I'm really proud that we are Scotland's only inclusive dance festival.
03:53We are acutely aware that our festival is being celebrated at a time when only just two weeks ago
04:03funding cuts were announced to freelance artists.
04:07That obviously does give you some intrepidation, you know, about our future as well.
04:15Independence delivers work all year round and part of those people that deliver our service
04:22are freelance artists and that's the way that we can support them,
04:26but we also need to be supported as an organisation.
04:30I feel like the festival's kind of like dropping a pebble in the ocean
04:35and that there'll be ripples and people will connect with each other and they'll make connections.
04:41I can see them going on already and we haven't even started.
04:44The South Koreans are meeting people from New Zealand in the cafe and having talks.
04:49It's always my desire that things go further than just the four days that we have,
04:55that it goes much further and much wider and that audiences get to see
04:59the wealth of beautiful work that people have produced from all over the world.