Yorkshire Dance Presents Encounters – A Mini-Festival of seeing, doing and eating

Encounters is a mini-festival of things to see, things to do and things to eat, which is being held at Yorkshire Dance, 3 St Peter’s Square, Leeds LS9 8AH on Friday and Saturday 9th and 10th November.

Things to see:
H2 Dance Company will present Strangers and Others in which each member of the audience is given a set of headphones through which they receive instructions from members of the company. This family-friendly experience explores how we relate to, and make judgments about, other people. This has been described by previous participants as being ‘really great fun’ and ‘a steep learning curve’.
Robbie Synge, Lucy Boyes and Company are a Scottish dance company with members aged from 32 to 74 and whose new performance, Ensemble, has taken five years to make. It is a joyous, tender and funny show said to feature some physical feats which audiences really wouldn’t expect! Well, that’s got my mind racing.
H2 Dance Strangers and Others Benedict Johnson
Rita Marcalo, a Portuguese-born dance artist who has lived in the UK for many years but has now decided to re-locate to Ireland after the Brexit vote, has a film showing at the event entitled One Last Dance – An Chead Damhsa. The subject is a two-month dance-walk she undertook from Guildford via many of the festivals and venues where she has performed with other EU citizens. Appropriately, the final UK performance took place at Yorkshire Dance on 5th October.
Things to do:
Saturday Morning Silent Disco. Everyone is given a set of headphones, a choice of different playlists and several workshops. Renowned dance artist TC Howard is inviting families to try out different ways of playing together, not just dancing.
Robbie Synge is multi-tasking with a workshop for adults the object of which is to enable the participants to ‘meet new people, move together and expand their ideas of what’s possible’. He hopes for a mixture of ages and dancing abilities, in other words, all are most welcome.
Things to eat:
Yorkshire Dance is also hosting a picnic and afternoon tea to give the festival-goers a chance to meet, eat and chat together.
The Artistic Director of Yorkshire Dance, Wieke Eringa, says that Encounters was created to be accessible for people with no experience of dance performance and participation as much as those for whom it is their living.
The full programme of events is listed at https://yorkshiredance.com/whats-on/ and a short trailer can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86DjonRjgBo
Should you wish to attend the mini-festival for Close Encounters of the Dancing Kind then please contact the Box Office on 0113-243-8765.
The event is run on a Pay What You Please basis.

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