Dana is an experienced consultant specialising in participatory evaluation and inclusive community engagement and has supported grassroots and infrastructure organisations led by and for marginalised communities. Her work centres on supporting organisations through co-designed, accessible and low-resource evaluation approaches.
Dana brings particular expertise in developing creative tools that help communities articulate needs and assess impact, especially in contexts where language, confidence and systemic barriers often prevent participation.
She has worked across diverse contexts, from digital inclusion in Stoke-on-Trent to arts-based engagement with displaced young people, and contributes to local strategy work around community cohesion, including anti-racism campaigns. She works with FRONTLINEdance as an independent evaluator, bringing together her love for the arts and for centring underrepresented voices.
Shannon Whetnall is an all-round performer, musician, drama teacher and Zumba instructor from Newcastle Under Lyme. Prior to her training, she has sung for Warner Leisure Hotels and on board two Cruise Ships. Since graduating from The London School of Musical Theatre, Shannon has worked extensively with the New Vic Theatre Borderlines department as an actor, theatre practitioner and Young People’s Theatre Company Director. She is highly passionate about performing and also about teaching. Throughout the year, Shannon sings at various events with her band or with her acoustic guitar. At Christmas time, you will normally find Shannon performing in a Pantomime, “Oh yes, you will!”
Shannon volunteered as part of FRONTLINEdance’s 2023 Summer Celebration Project and quickly came to love every minute of the experience. Since then, she has continued working with FRONTLINEdance, taking part in the Explorer in Training performances and supporting the Advanced Training Programme as a Creative Enabler. Through her involvement, Shannon has made many new friends and developed a wide range of skills.
In 2025, she achieved her Level 3 qualification in British Sign Language (BSL). In her spare time, Shannon enjoys going to the gym, spending time with friends and family, and looking after her cats.
Stanislav’s involvement with arts and culture started at age 5, when a music teacher discovered his talent for singing in his country of birth Bulgaria. He started learning solfège and playing classical piano alongside that. Stanislav attended a music primary school from age 7 to 11, where folklore choreography was also added to his curriculum. He attended public performances as a singer in a choir as well as a pianist for a few years before he had to relocate due to life circumstances.
Life’s taken Stanislav in different directions over the years. He’s now an entrepreneur and an investor. His interests include various forms of artistic expression, self-improvement, esports, night riding, as well as being part of and helping the neurodivergent community. He’s looking forward to helping FRONTLINEdance and serving on the Board, whilst enjoying his life long passion for music and artistic expression, alongside continuing on his business journey in life.
What? Me, Worry? is a short dance film created by dancer Kayleigh Price, drawing on her lived experience of anxiety and neurodivergence. The work creates a compelling narrative using three art forms – film, dance and music – to take you on a journey through the lens of living with generalised anxiety disorder.
Collaborating with filmmaker Jay Gearing and composer Luke Marley, who are both neurodivergent, it explores feeling alone and paralysed by thoughts but also wanting to make others happy, bringing the audience into Kayleigh’s experience. She hopes the work will help start important conversations about mental health and her reality of living with anxiety.
The screening is free to attend, with an optional donation. If you would like to support FRONTLINEdance with a donation, please contact us. A link will be provided at the screening.
We look forward to sharing What? Me, Worry? with you on Thursday 14th May at 12:30!
This workshop is open to all, with or without a dance background, such as film makers, performance makers, deaf artists, BSL Interpreters, producers, educators, commissioners, leaders, third sector organisations, students, and our deaf community.
We want you to explore how technology can be a key creative tool. By integrating accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing audiences from the start, we aim to spark new ways of thinking and making.
Join this workshop with Nua Dance to explore the different access offers for deaf and hard of hearing audiences that they have developed over the last 6 years, with special emphasis on the interaction between video design and dance—both in live performance and film. Through practical exercises and discussion, we’ll examine how video can shape dramaturgy, enhance visuals, and expand accessibility.
Nua Dance has been researching the integration of dance and technology since 2020, first with NOISE and now with Bending Reality, their latest production.
Facilitators:
Ben Glover, long-term video design collaborator of Nua Dance. Ben is deaf himself and has specialised in creative captions. He also works regularly with companies such as Stopgap, Graeae and Deafinitely Theatre.
Neus Gil Cortes, artistic director of Nua Dance, has been working with deaf artists and audiences since 2020 through her own creations and as dramaturg with Maral Mamaghanizadeh, Deaf Explorer and a workshop facilitator with Remark!
What to Expect:
A mix of shared experiences, short video excerpts, and hands-on exercises integrating video into performance.
A space to share tools, explore new possibilities for your own work and discuss approaches to access for deaf and hard of hearing people in a safe space.
The opportunity to try access offers such as a Woojer vest (haptic technology that vibrates to sound)
The workshop will be BSL interpreted
Schedule: Arrive from 9am 9:30 – 10:50 Session 1
10:50 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:20 Session 2
12:20 – 12:30 Debrief/open conversation
Venue Information: Free on-site car park to the side of the venue. Plus, ample on-street parking is available in the surrounding areas.
Join Stuart Waters https://www.head-on.co.uk and Willie Elliott http://wevoices.co.uk for an online workshop, where you will be introduced to how Stuart and Willie began a journey in 2021 into embedding audio description from the outset of a creative process for performance and touring. This covers research, creation and performance stages of the creative process.
The workshop will involve listening, watching, and experimenting with embedding audio description yourself. It will include fun tasks, sharing experiences, and a Q&A session. The aim is to introduce a different relationship to access and encourage you to adapt and rethink your approaches. They will share what they chose at the time of creation, but audio description offers many other possibilities. This is an opportunity to play and think differently about it.
Workshop schedule
The workshop will take place on Teams, with plenty of screen breaks and time to work creatively away from the screen. Please arrive having had lunch.
1pm – 1:45pm: Welcome, check in and introduction to Stuart and Willie, their practices and sharing of A Queer Collision.
1:45 – 2pm: Break
2pm – 2:50pm: Willie Elliott will lead an introduction to audio description practical workshop and tasks. This part of the workshop will close with a conversation held by Stuart.
2:50pm – 3pm: Break
3pm – 3:45pm: The final practical experience of embedding audio description led by Stuart and Willie.
3:45pm – 4:15pm: Q&A and check out.
Suggested Pay What You Can – £25
Register and get your tickets via this link: https://shorturl.at/6E3Y4Once registered, we’ll send you the Teams Meeting Link.
We welcome deaf, disabled, neurodivergent people, and access service providers like audio describers and BSL interpreters to attend. You don’t have to be an artist. Your lived experience will help us improve access, develop current methodologies, and continue the conversation.
WEBINAR: Wednesday 18th March at 11:30am – 1:30pm. Join us to find out more about the project, the artists involved, collaborations, and the next steps. Plus, key reflections and guidance on learning to strengthen access, inclusion, and advocacy.
Book your tickets here:https://shorturl.at/nV86z FREE – donations welcomed. Once registered, we’ll send you the Microsoft Teams Link.
Schedule:
11:30am: Welcome and Project Overview
11:40am: Artists’ Introductions
12:00pm: Five-minute screen break
12:05pm: Group 1 Sharing
12:20pm: Group 2 Sharing
12:35pm: Group 3 Sharing
12:50pm: Five-minute screen break
12:55pm: Key reflections and guidance
13:15pm: Questions and answers
13:30pm: Close
Connect & Collaborate 2026’s 9 talented artists!
Lucy is an independent multidisciplinary movement artist working across choreography, performance, community facilitation and artistic direction.
Stuart is a Contemporary Dance Artist, performer and teacher whose practice has shifted into maker, researcher, curator, facilitator, mentor and coach (EMCC Senior practitioner accreditation).
Caroline is a Freelance journalist, writer, community artist and researcher.
Kayleigh is a freelance dance artist, choreographer and Artistic Director of Company K, making autobiographical work using her own experiences to demonstrate shared commonalities.
Brannon is a Filmmaker. Alumnus of Northern School of Contemporary Dance, transitioned into film through the creation of dance films over the course of COVID. Now working predominantly in dance films to narrative and documentaries.
Shaun is a performance poet born with Cerebral Palsy and a wheelchair user. His poetry ranges from the frustrations of everyday access issues to travel, dating, and growing up, with humour or poignancy.
Louise is a BBC and commercial radio presenter, broadcaster, interviewer & reporter.
Holly is a UK based dance artist, choreographer, performer and co-director of Half Light Projects C.I.C. Resident at the Watershed’s Pervasive Media Studio in Bristol and a member of the West of England Sight Loss Council’s arts and culture forum. Exploring the often-uncharted territory of dance and visual impairment and the aesthetics of choreography from a non-visual perspective.
FRONTLINEdance are also setting up a new steering group, with deaf, disabled, neurodivergent people who are either artists themselves or who take part in the arts. It will have a focus on development, confidence, leadership skills, as well as influencing who we programme to deliver guest workshops, webinars, and conversations. You will get the opportunity to discuss challenges, champion those getting access right, and steer the way FRONTLINEdance works, including feeding all of these things into our board discussions.
It’s aimed at people who live and work in North Staffordshire and the Moorlands, but we welcome anyone who has lived experience to join us.
If you are interested, can you please let Rachael know as soon as you can, so we can set up some get-togethers in the new year: rachael@frontlinedance.co.uk
FRONTLINEdance warmly invites you to join us for a special day designed for parent/carers of deaf, disabled or neurodivergent family members, and who are arts, creative and media professionals. It will be a chance to meet, connect, and share our stories and experiences in a supportive and creative space.
Together, we’ll explore the lives we are leading as carers — reflecting on the challenges we face, while also celebrating the joys and strengths that caring brings. The day will be relaxed, welcoming, and full of opportunities to be creative, whilst exchanging ideas and being listened to.
This gathering marks the beginning of a series of monthly sessions, where we can continue to create together as a group. Through shared experiences, we hope to build a community that uplifts, supports, and celebrates the unique journeys of parent/carers, and create something together in which we will share with others.
We look forward to welcoming you,
When: 8th January 2026, 10 am – 2.30 pm
Where: Westport Lake Visitors Centre, Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent.
In January 2026, FRONTLINEdance is starting a new programme to support deaf, disabled and neurodivergent artists, creatives and media professionals, of all art forms.
To kick-start the programme, we are inviting up to 8 artists to form a collective over 4 days, and 3 half days, offering the opportunity to connect and collaborate.
Between £850 – £1,050, depending on location, will be paid to each artist to support time and expenses.
FRONTLINEdance’s role will be to select, connect you together, facilitate the introduction, provide the space, and support the process. What happens in these 5 days will be decided by the collective, whilst being supported by FRONTLINEdance’s Artistic Director and a Freelance Evaluator. You’ll have the opportunity to explore ideas and collaborate with no pressure to create a product. What happens next, will be decided by the group and supported by FRONTLINEdance.
To apply, please fill out this short expression of interest form:
Weds 18th March: Public Webinar 10:30-1:30pm (online)
Please register by 22nd December at 10am.
Artists will be selected by Rachael and FRONTLINEdance’s associate Artistic Director, Kayleigh Price on 22ndDecember. You will be notified of the outcome on Tuesday, 23rd December by 6pm.
We look forward to receiving your applications and a reminder that this is open to all art forms, creatives and media professionals at any stage of their career.
Not sure if this is for you? Then please join Rachael and Kayleigh online at 1pm-1:30pm on Wednesday, 17thDecember, for a short overview with the opportunity to ask questions.
Join us on Teams: Meeting ID: 390 280 532 129 85 Passcode: nu26ag7L
