ARTIST TRAINING IN DUBAI

 DANCE ARTISTS
Professional Development Training in Dance for Early Years

PLEASE NOTE THIS PROJECT HAS NOW CLOSED, FOR MORE INFORMATION ON TRAINING PLEASE CONTACT US.

About the project
The project aims to provide high quality training in professional choreography for young children, which in turn will lead to an increase in local production of high-value artistic and educational dance theatre work for children in the UAE.

This project is a part of the UK-UAE Cultural Professionals Connect grant programme funded by the FCDO and delivered in partnership with the British Council in UAE to foster international mobility, networking and creative exchanges through arts and culture.

The project will be carried out by 2 partners: Choreographer and a founder of a Commotion Dance (www.commotiondance.co.uk), Vicki Hargreaves from the UK and the initiative HIBA Art Project (www.hibaartproject.com) from the UAE. The training is delivered and developed by British choreographer, Vicki Hargreaves who is Creative Director of Commotion Dance Company. Vicki is a choreographer, director and producer with over 13 years’ experience in the cultural industry in the UK and has a passion to create exceptional experiences for young children, to ignite a spark in them at a young age, develop their imagination and work with them to create memorable and lifelong connections to dance and the arts. She has toured four successful family dance performances nationally, alongside an extensive education outreach programme which focuses on work with ages 1 year to 6 years old in nursery, kindergarten and primary schools. Vicki has a degree in Choreography and Dance and a second degree in Leadership and Management.

Who is it for?
This training is aimed for professional and semi-professional dance artists based in the UAE who are interested in developing their choreographic practises and widening their knowledge, understanding and performance skills in how to create high quality dance
performance for young children. Prior experience in dance for children is an advantage but not essential. Topics covered across the programme will be:

-The importance of music choices for your choreography
-How to structure a choreographic performance, including the use of body language and
facial expression to engage children and audience interaction
-Theory in British Early Years Performance
-How to successfully use stories, props and sensory elements within performance to engage
and captivate children’s imagination

By the end of the training programme, participants will have developed a short work in progress, with the support of Vicki to test on willing young audience members from our partner schools/nurseries. This will give practical hands-on experience for each dance artist
to test out ideas in a safe and nurturing environment. Utilising all the skills and knowledge they have gained over the training sessions.

How much does it cost?
Usually training like this would cost between 2,500AED but we are delighted to say that as this project is generously funded through the British Council UAE and therefore we can offer this high quality training programme to each artist free of charge.

Where and when will the training take place?
The training will be delivered in a dance studio based in Dubai, exact locations TBC. The duration of the training is 5 days: 4 days of knowledge sharing and 1 day of applying the acquired knowledge.

The 4 days will take place on 2 weekends, each day from 10am to 4pm.
The tentative dates are:
Weekend 1 –  Sat 12th  Feb
Weekend 2 – Sat 12th – Sun 13th March
The last, 5th day would be the consecutive day after the 2nd weekend and would take place at the school with school children present to take part with each dance artist.

How to apply:
We see this project as a significant contribution to the development of the artistic and education landscape of the UAE, to the artistic community of the performing arts, to the much needed development of performing arts and most of all to the infrastructure of the artistic and educational production for young children. Please send your most up to date dance CV and a short one page letter of interest as to why you would like to take part in this training and how you think this will benefit you. Please send as ONE PDF attachment by email to hello@hibaartproject.com

We hope that you are interested in joining this exciting collaborative project. As per conditions of the funder, our project needs to be accomplished by 15 March 2022. Therefore, the deadline for artists’ expression of interest is Saturday 5th February. Please note by applying you agree to attend all 5 days of the training programme.