Author: frontline-admin

FRONTLINEdance seeks voluntary Board directors and members, including Chair of the Board.

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FRONTLINEdance, as an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (NPO), 2023-2026, is recruiting for Board Directors, Members and a new Chair.  As a not-for-profit company ltd by guarantee (no shareholders), voluntary board members will support growth and stability to ensure FRONTLINEdance remain a permanent fixture in the arts and disability ecology of the West Midlands and Nationally. 

Deadline for expressions of interest: 

5pm, Monday 13th January 2024

Find out more about FRONTLINEdance, by clicking the link.

We are keen to ensure that the new Chair and Board members /directors represent who we are as a dance artist-led company, where d/DEAF, disabled, neurodiverse (dDDN), and those with long-term health conditions are at the core of the organisation as leaders, dancers, artists, participants, and audiences. We are also committed to ensure underrepresented groups and communities with whom we frequently work are represented on our Board. As such, we are keen to receive applications from: 

  • people who represent groups from lower socio-economic backgrounds, from the Global Majority, who are d/DEAF, disabled, neurodiverse, and/or have long-term health conditions 
  • those who have strategic experience of Stoke-on-Trent and the surrounding area
  • those with an interested and skill in environmental responsibility
  • experienced in running arts companies or dDDN based charities
  • business development
  • those who work in Healthcare including Creative Health

THE BOARDS PURPOSE: to support FRONTLINEdance to deliver with quality, an ambitious activity plan that embeds the Arts Council England’s shared Investment Principles and #Let’s Create strategy.   To advocate for and introduce FRONTLINEdance to potential supporters, partners, investors; to advocate for access and inclusion widely, be objective with the ability to scrutinise and question FRONTLINEdance’s decisions, planning and delivery, to advise the organisation and support in its strategic aims for the long-term organisation development and sustainability.   

Being based in Stoke-on-Trent means that our work is positioned to the Levelling-up Agenda, and therefore the Board should also be strong advocates for programming and connecting to those who are harder to reach (due to geographical, social or economic limitations).

SKILLS, KNOWLEDE, COMMITMENT TO:

  • Inclusion and access being embedded and at the centre of all we do and then advocate this externally. The social model of disability is central to all our thinking
  • Ensuring the board can be a place where d/DEAF, disabled and neurodivergent people can lead, develop and thrive with equity.
  • Supporting the contemporary dance, arts and disability ecology
  • Sector development; carer pathways where barriers are removed, for example due to academic attainment.
  • Arts Council England’s Investment Principles and #Let’s Create Strategy
  • Sound business models for the arts and not-for-profit sector
  • Sector development; giving others the tools, skills and confidence to make their practices accessible and fully inclusive
  • Ability to objectively scrutinise and hold the company to account
  • Supporting FRONTLINEdance staff, to help achieve the aims of the organisation. 
  • Fostering relations with potential clients and potential funders / donors.
  • Ensuring adherence and compliance around key policies, for example Equality and Diversity, Health & Safety, and in all decisions and discussions of the Board.
  • Stimulating excellent, well-rounded and carefully considered strategic decision-making. 

ADDITIONAL FOR THE CHAIR POSITION:

  • Have the ability to Chair meetings where all voices are heard displaying good time management. 
  • Create a strong, profitable and fulfilling working relationship with the board and FRONTLINEdance staff. 
  • Liaise regularly with the treasurer to maintain a clear grasp of FRONTLINEdance financial position and to ensure full and timely financial transparency and information disclosure to the board.
  • Approve the annual cycle of the board meetings, meeting agendas, chair and facilitate meetings, monitor decisions taken at meetings and ensure they are implemented.
  • Support and contribute to strategic plans and conduct regular reviews of long-term strategic aims of FRONTLINEdance.
  • Lead and mentor other board members to fulfil their responsibilities and enable access to training/coaching/information to enhance the overall contribution of the board.
  • Annually review the board structure, role, staff relationships and ensure implementation of agreed changes/developments are carried out.
  • Encourage team working among board members and encourage them to identify and recruit new trustees as required.
  • Represent FRONTLINEdance as a spokesperson at appropriate events, meetings or functions.
  • Act as final stage adjudicator for disciplinary and grievance procedures if required.
  • Facilitate change and address conflict within the board of Trustees, within FRONTLINEdance and liaise with the appropriate FRONTLINEdance staff to achieve this.

BENEFITS OF JOINING OUR BOARD:

  1. Your professional networks will be enhanced with opportunities for skills development and career progression.
  2. Develop your sound judgement and interpersonal skills. 
  3. Opportunity to lead and work with d/DEAF, disabled and neurodivergent professionals.’
  4. Make a difference to the local community! Your role helps ensure that FRONTLINEdance remain viable and sustainable. 
  5. Support community engagement and community cohesion.
  6. Develop problem-solving, analytic skills and versatility.  
  7. You will play a part in ensuring Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire is a place where d/DEAF, disabled people, neurodivergent, and those with long term health conditions can thrive.

TIME COMMITMENT AND TERMS

  • 2-3 years, with staggered replacement
  • You are required to fully participate in quarterly board meetings usually held via zoomaround the 1st of April, June, September and 18th December
  • Communication via email and Whatsapp will be necessary.
  • Attend at least one performance or event per year. More is desirable but optional. 
  • Check emails and respond in a timely manner.
  • Ensure that FRONTLINEdance pursues its objects (purposes) as defined in its governing document and other relevant legislation/regulations.

Deadline for expressions of interest: 

10am on Monday 13th January 2025

Interviews are likely to be held via zoom on:

Friday 17th January 2025

To express your interest please fill out this online form. https://forms.office.com/e/3UMfijK0Ku

Please let us know if the application form is not accessible to you. We welcome alternate methods of applying. 

Please reach out if you have any queries. You can contact our Artistic Director/CEO Rachael rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk | 07484 874335 

Thank you in advance for your time. 

‘Holding On’ Performance at Seth’s Legacy Conference

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Pancreatic cancer, compassion & creativity / 20th November 2024 at 10am / Keele Chapel, Keele University.

We are honoured to premiere ‘Holding On’ at the Seth’s Legacy Conference, as part of the 10th year of his passing to pancreatic cancer.

two female dancers are standing facing each other with their palms pressed together above their heads as they look up at their hands. They are both wearing pale white tops with sunlight passing through.

Holding On was co-created with the performing dancer’s Kayleigh Price, Katie Albon and Charlotte Arnold, emerging dancer Beth Hope and community dancers Mary Godden and April Fone. Concept and Direction by Rachael Lines.

The concept of the work was a direct result of Lesley, Seth’s wife inviting us to be part of the day and the different narratives of grief caused by Cancer and directly experienced by members of the artistic team. Conversations from members of the pancreatic cancer community has influenced and added to the work.

A female with long hair and glasses is leaning forward in her wheelchair so she can support the weight of another female dancer with dark hair who is crouched on the back of the chair. The dancer behind is reaching one arm over the shoulder of the wheelchair dancer and both are looking down. They are wearing shades of white and grey, and behind them wooden benches can be seen

FRONTLINEdance will be performing a special 30-minute version, for the conference in this special location. It features recorded music by composer and singer-songwriter Greg Hall, and costume by Ilona Alyamani. A full-length production and screen dance films will follow in 2025, as will a new performance project for those diagnosed with Cancer.

Five dancers are leaning on a female seated in a chair in front of a large window in a church. In front are two female dancers kneeling on the floor, on either side two dancers in wheelchairs are leaning in, and behind a final dancer can just be seen leaning her head on her shoulder. The church is dimly lit and wooden benches can be seen behind.

We very much hope that you can join us at 10am, Keele Chapel, Keele University on 20th November.

You can book a place at the conference here: https://shorturl.at/FQX08

Please contact rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk if you are interested in being part of our performance project or booking either work in 2025.

Photos by Jenny Harper during rehearsals of Holding On, inside Keele Chapel.

Our Wonderful Chair, Marc Crank

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It’s with great sadness that on Tuesday 15th October, our wonderful Chair, Marc Crank sadly passed away.

I first met Marc back in the early 2000’s when he was the CEO of Disability Solutions. He first became Chair of FRONTLINEdance from 15 April 2004 to 13 October 2008. He rejoined the board again as Chair and Director in September 2023.

Marc led with great care, compassion and humour. He was a committed, knowledgeable, and experienced, Chair, whom we were very lucky to have on our board. He was enthusiastic about the work that we do here at FRONTLINEdance, and very supportive of me as the Artistic Director/CEO.

Marc’s job as CEO at several charities, meant that he could share his knowledge and experience with me and the rest of the team. He understood and acted on the importance of his role from both sides. He ensured that we met monthly, and always thanked me for the work I was doing. He also always ended by reminding me to take care and not to forget to look after myself.

His advice, words of wisdom and compassion prominently whirl around in my head. They will offer me support and strength as we plough through the many plans and activities, we have for FRONTLINEdance.

Our thoughts and condolences are with Marc’s wife Fiona, his family, friends and colleagues.

Rachael Lines, Artistic Director / CEO, FRONTLINEdance

(Marc Crank, June 1969- October 2024).

Adams, Alastair Christian; Marc Crank; Girton College, University of Cambridge; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/marc-crank-195122

VD: A portrait painting image of Marc. He is wearing a blue shirt and green chinos. One leg is lifted and tucked behind the other. He is smiling whilst siting on an antique red and mahogany stool, in front of a fire place

Image Copyright: © the artist. Image credit: Girton College, University of Cambridge. Alastair Christian Adams (b.1969)

The painting was created whilst Marc was Chief Executive for Henshaws North West. Marc regularly spoke about his experience of living with a facial disfigurement. Alastair Adams first approached him about sitting for a portrait in order to enable him to further his research into the reflective values of the portrait painting process. Before, during and after his sittings with Marc, Alastair gathered video footage and recorded interviews with him and his immediate family, and used the process of the production of the painting as a method to gather information on the impact of facial disfigurement. The final painting was exhibited at the 2009 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition.

The painting then went on to the National Portrait Gallery and was exhibited between June and September, 2009.

DIY Dancer

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‘DIY Dancer’, a short film commissioned by FRONTLINEdance. This film gave associate artist Kayleigh Price and members of our community dance groups the opportunity to work together to produce a unique piece of dance for film for the first time.

‘DIY Dancer’ screen dance project, centres on a poem by Matt Abbott written for community dance participant Mary Godden at an Appetite Event. It feature’s in the films conclusion which is beautifully signed by Kevaughn Laing (one of our ATP dancers and now emerging artists).

The performing dancers are from FRONTLINEdance’s community programmes – Breakthrou’ dance, Moving Together and our new Advanced Training Programme (ATP). Ages range from 7 to 77 years old and participants are d/DEAF, disabled, neurodivergent dancers or have a long-term health condition’s.

The film features dancers who had only just joined the FRONTLINEdance community (3 weeks in), where they and others made their performance debut as part of the film!

Choreography: Kayleigh Price and the dancers

Videography By: Jay Gearing Red7Productions

Composition and Music: Luke Marley

Direction: Kayleigh Price

Contact hello@frontlinedance.co.uk for more details, to support FRONTLINEdance and to join one of our programmes. Find us on most social media channels @FRONTLINEdance1 and hit subscribe on YouTube.

FRONTLINEdance is proud to be an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (2023-2026), which means funding thanks to taxpayers plays a huge part in supporting our work.

Holding On 2’ – a Creative Health project open to those living with and beyond cancer. 

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We’re inviting you to join ‘Holding On 2’ – a Creative Health project open to those living with and beyond cancer.

In a safe environment, you will explore creative and artistic ideas in a number of ways, supported by our team of artists, (most of which have had a cancer diagnosis themselves ), and each other. Loved ones are welcome too 😊.

On offer will be movement and dance (as gentle or as energetic as you wish it to be), singing, music, creative writing, drawing, plus more besides!

NO EXPERIENCE NECCESARY. We’re well known for integrating beginners and professionals together in the same space. 

All sessions are free of charge, and we can support transport costs. Sessions on offer will be on a few different days and times to accommodate commitments, hospital appointments and days when you are not feeling well enough to attend. Days, times and venues will be sent after we have had a chat. 

Please call Rachael (Artistic Director/CEO) – or email/text Rachael to call you, so we can discuss the project with you and highlight all the different options of taking part on offer. It’s starting very soon!

There will be a choice to share what we create in a live performance and a film project. This is your choice and not wanting to take part will not prevent you from taking part in all other aspects of the project. We’d love as many people as possible to join us and we understand performing isn’t for everyone. 

If this isn’t for you, but you’d like to share your cancer journey with us, so others can explore and share it as part of our performances, then please contact Rachael. She will listen to your story, then let you know how we’d like to use it.  

This project aims to support and nurture your mental, emotional, social and physical health. Words to describe similar projects have been; safe, joyous, supported, listened to, respected, comradery, valued, energised, alive, strong, more agile, proud, content, acceptance, hope and ownership.

Please contact Rachael as soon as you can: 

Email: rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk | Mobile: 07484 874335 😊

We are also keen to hear from those who work with Cancer patients in hospital and community settings who are interested in getting involved. There are many strands to this project, and we can also come to you as part of it. 

If you are a group and you’d like us to visit you please contact: rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk as soon as possible. 

Please share this opportunity with those who you think would like to join us.

Many thanks.

DIY Dancer

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‘DIY Dancer’, a short film commissioned by FRONTLINEdance. This film gave associate artist Kayleigh Price and members of our community dance groups the opportunity to work together to produce a unique piece of dance for film for the first time.

‘DIY Dancer’ screen dance project, centres on a poem by Matt Abbott written for community dance participant Mary Godden at an Appetite Event. It feature’s in the films conclusion which is beautifully signed by Kevaughn Laing (one of our ATP dancers and now emerging artists).

The performing dancers are from FRONTLINEdance’s community programmes – Breakthrou’ dance, Moving Together and our new Advanced Training Programme (ATP). Ages range from 7 to 77 years old and participants are d/DEAF, disabled, neurodivergent dancers or have a long-term health condition’s.

The film features dancers who had only just joined the FRONTLINEdance community (3 weeks in), where they and others made their performance debut as part of the film!

Choreography: Kayleigh Price and the dancers

Videography By: Jay Gearing Red7Productions

Composition and Music: Luke Marley

Direction: Kayleigh Price

Contact hello@frontlinedance.co.uk for more details, to support FRONTLINEdance and to join one of our programmes. Find us on most social media channels @FRONTLINEdance1 and hit subscribe on YouTube.

FRONTLINEdance is proud to be an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation (2023-2026), which means funding thanks to taxpayers plays a huge part in supporting our work.

We have an audio described version too.

We’re inviting you to join ‘Holding On 2’ – a Creative Health project open to those living with and beyond cancer.  

Posted on by frontline-admin

In a safe environment, you will explore creative and artistic ideas in a number of ways, supported by our team of artists, (most of which have had a cancer diagnosis themselves ), and each other.  Loved ones are welcome too 😊.

On offer will be movement and dance (as gentle or as energic as you wish it to be) singing and music, creative writing, drawing, plus more besides!

NO EXPERIENCE NECCESARY. We’re well known for integrating beginners and professionals together in the same space. 

All sessions are free of charge, and we can support transport costs. Sessions on offer will be on a few different days and times to accommodate commitments, hospital appointments and days when you are not feeling well enough to attend. Days, times and venues will be sent after we have had a chat. 

Please call me (or email / text me to call you), so we can discuss the project with you and highlight all the different options of taking part on offer. It’s starting very soon!

There will be a choice to share what we create in a live performance and a film project. This is your choice and not wanting to take part will not prevent you from taking part in all other aspects of the project. We’d love as many people as possible to join us and we understand performing isn’t for everyone. 

If this isn’t for you, but you’d like to share your cancer journey with us, so others can explore and share it as part of our performances then please contact me. I will listen to your story, then let you know how we’d like to use it.  

This project aims to support and nurture your mental, emotional, social and physical health. Words to describe similar projects have been; safe, joyous, supported, listened to, respected, comradery, valued, energised, alive, strong, more agile, proud, content, acceptance, hope and ownership.

Please contact me as soon as you can: 

Email: rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk | Mobile: 07484 874335 😊

We are also keen to hear from those who work with Cancer patients in hospital and community settings who are interested in getting involved. There are many strands to this project, and we can also come to you as part of it. 

If you are a group and you’d like us to visit you please contact: rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk as soon as possible. 

Please share this opportunity with those who you think would like to join us.

Thank You and Best Wishes,

Rachael Lines

Artistic Director / CEO | www.frontlinedance.co.uk 

VOLUNTEERS – We need you!

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"Join Our Team" in a white circle, on a navy background. In the middle a group of FRONTLINEdance participants are seated and standing holding up a thumbs and smiling. Below is the FRONTLINEdance logo.

FRONTLINEdance are looking for volunteers to support dance workshops for wheelchair users with complex disabilities and their families.

You’ll be needed from 10:45am-12:15pm on a Saturday during term and with a few longer sessions on ad-hoc days during the holidays. We understand that you may not be able to make every week, and that’s OK. So please still get in touch if you can help us just a few times as well as on a regularly or as many time as you’d like!

There is a range of duties you can chose to help us with including:

  • Welcoming families
  • Chatting to and supporting the participants
  • Workshop assisting – supporting the lead artists and families
  • Making hot and cold drinks

This is also a great opportunity for teachers, T/A’s, Personal assistants and carers to get ideas of how to create inclusive dance sessions for wheelchair users with complex disabilities. 

We need volunteers for leaflet distribution too, so please let us know if you can help.

Travel costs will be reimbursed. More information will be provided once you have registered your interest. 

To register please complete our online registration form: https://forms.office.com/e/bT4aEWEyee

Contact Rachael or Amy if you need any further information:

rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk  (07484 874335)  amy@frontlinedance.co.uk (07356 053432)

If you want to volunteer for us but not for this project, please still get in touch. We have lots of opportunities to get involved in FRONTLINEdance!

Frontline Arts Festival – a brilliant: warm, welcoming, engaging, thought-provoking, fun day, where I have felt included and I feel a sense of belonging to this wonderful creative community.  

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  Photography by Jenny Harper

Article by Caroline Butterwick…

“I was a bit nervous about coming along today, but everyone seems really friendly,” a fellow festival attendee says as we sit and chat over coffee in the Main Hall of the Catalyst Building at Staffordshire University. We’re here for the Frontline Arts Festival, a celebration of disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent artists, taking place for the day on 28th March. Led by FRONTLINEdance, the event is filled with performances, panels and networking.

As a disabled writer – I’m visually impaired and have experienced mental ill health – I’m curious to discover what today brings. One of the things I’m particularly interested in is the accessibility of a big event like this, as I know that access and inclusion is an important part of FRONTLINEdance’s approach. As much as I enjoy arts events, I often face barriers, from not being able to see what’s happening on stage to feeling anxious in crowded spaces. Like the participant I spoke to earlier, I admit to being a little nervous too, as much as I’m looking forward to the day.

And like my fellow festival attendee, I’m already reassured. There are lots of volunteers, sporting FRONTLINEdance t-shirts, who make sure to welcome people as they arrive, and who explain how the day will work. Being given a printed out schedule on arrival has been helpful too, as I’m someone who likes certainty and structure. 

And soon, I’m speaking with Tim Calvert, a professional audio describer, who sets me up with a headset so I’ll be able to hear his live audio commentary of the day. I often use audio description when going to the theatre, and am pleasantly surprised that the headset Tim hands me is comfier than ones I’ve used previously. It had one earpiece, which rests gently over my right ear, and a couple of cables connecting it to a small control so I can change the volume and turn it on and off. 

I filter into the Gallery room, an impressive space with a stage at the front and then rows of chairs that are already filling up. I take a seat near the front, and listen as musician Katy Rose Bennett strums her guitar and sings her ethereal folk songs. Tim is sitting at the back of the room, and I hear him through my earpiece as he fills in the visual details, everything from Katy’s blue Gibson to the layout of the room. I can still hear Katy’s music clearly over the audio description. Tim points out that there are two British Sign Language interpreters working today, one of whom is currently at the front of the room giving a BSL interpretation of Katy’s lyrics. 

Rachael Lines, who’s the Artistic Director of FRONTLINEdance, takes to the stage. She gives an audio description of herself, and introduces the event. “The whole point of today is that you meet someone new,” she says, and I realise I’ve already met one new person, and it’s not even 10.30am. She explains how the Frontline Arts Festival aims to get more disabled artists work, and the plan for there to be more performances throughout the year.

The day brings a mix of talented people to the accessible stage. We enjoy poetry from Shaun Fallows that weaves together humour and emotion; and confessional, poignant poems from Louise Fazackerley and Natasha Tingle exploring mental health. 

There is an engaging panel discussion, chaired by Kelsie Acton, who is a neurodivergent access consultant, and researcher, where artists discuss the reality of working as disabled, d/Deaf and neurodivergent creatives. The audience makes the most of asking questions to the panel on topics such as what best practice looks like in supporting disabled artists, and I find myself nodding my head at so much of what they say – everything from the issues of tokenism in the arts to what makes an event truly accessible. 

Tim’s audio description is helpful throughout, but for me, it’s most valuable when it comes to the premiere of the screen dance film, What? Me, Worry?, shown on a large screen at the front of the room. The film is by FRONTLINEdance associate artist Kayleigh Price and filmmaker Jay Gearing, two neurodivergent artists who have collaborated to create a screen dance film exploring Kayleigh’s lived experience of anxiety. 

As the film plays, Tim describes the action on the screen: the scene at the start, and then Kayleigh’s dance – how her body arches, convulses, how she reaches for the sky. It isn’t just a literal description of her movement – there is a level of insight and depth that helps me fill in the emotion. I learn of how she is “moving her body like she has no control over it”, how she’s “struggling with what she’s experiencing”, how “her face is totally still, showing no emotion like frozen in time”.

Ordinarily, a film like this – especially one without dialogue – would leave me feeling left out. But with this audio description, I feel part of the shared experience. 

So, what does make an event truly accessible? I wonder this as we filter back into the Main Hall for lunch – provided in individual carry bags, so none of my awkward trying to figure out what’s in a buffet. This is also a helpful approach for those with smell sensitivity.  

I ask Gay Hoban, who is an active part of the North Staffs Pensioners’ Convention, about how she has found today’s experience so far. “It’s very inclusive and welcoming,” she says as we chat over lunch. She tells me how the North Staffs Pensioners’ Convention want to run an event around disability, and that her experience at the Frontline Arts Festival has shown the ways an event can be accessible and inclusive. “Today has inspired me,” she says. “And I feel I have contacts now to help make that happen.”

After lunch there is a fascinating presentation with James Lake, a sculptor who works with cardboard, and dancers Welly O’Brien and Victoria Fox-Markiewicz, where they discuss their joint FRONTLINEdance commission which gave the three of them the time to explore new creative ideas through a residency together. Again, Tim gives audio description throughout, describing the images displayed on the screen, like James’s impressive sculptures of people and buildings, crafted entirely from cardboard.  This audio description helps me feel included.

The last main event of the day is a ‘Pitch and Mix’ speed networking event, which is a structured form of networking. It feels more accessible: I’d usually find myself loitering by the drinks table at a standard networking event, nervously scanning the room for someone to speak to and hoping no one notices I’m glugging my fourth cup of coffee. Half of the participants are seated at tables, and the rest of us go between them, with five minutes per table before being asked to switch. This makes it much easier to start conversations as you don’t have to try to find someone to speak to, and is also a great way of meeting a range of people. I have interesting conversations with new people, as well as reconnecting with existing contacts. There are people working across a range of creative disciplines: I speak with dancers, poets, and ceramicists, and leave with new connections made.  

The day ends with more poetry from Shaun and folk music from Katy Rose, and a real sense that this is an event that has impacted so many people positively. Access has been very much woven through the day, which has included BSL interpretation, a chill out room, and lots of staff and volunteers on hand. And, for me, it’s having audio description that allows me to feel an equal part of this experience.    

The day has been brilliant: warm, welcoming, engaging, thought-provoking, fun. I have felt included. I have lots to think about as a disabled artist, and I feel a sense of belonging to this wonderful creative community.    

Caroline Butterwick