Youth Steering Group

Member’s blog

Hello and welcome to the first blog post on the DU Dance (NI) Steering Group page. We decided that the members of the Steering Group should write about their experiences as a part of DU Dance more specifically our experiences in Alternative Energies and Sutemos.

I’m part of Sutemos and have been for over three years. In this time I’ve made lots of new friends from different schools that I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise, this has helped me realise that it’s good to know people from different places. It has also boosted my confidence with all the performances we do, my favourite performances that we do are DU Dance’s annual Unanimous  – this is because we get to go down to Belfast and perform with lots of different people from other groups and we get to see what they have worked on in a theatre with a proper stage.

We also discuss issues that young people face for example last term we made three different short films that we created ourselves my group focused on bullying and we had a great time planning the dance for it and filming it. I know that I ever need to talk to someone I can and it will be a safe space to do so. The classes are always good fun and I really enjoy going to them every week. All in all I really enjoy being part of Sutemos.

Amelie, January 2019

 

Day of Dance

Congratulations to all members of the Steering Group for their active role in planning, helping to run “the most fun” workshops and introducing all the groups that took part in our annual “Day of Dance”  including for the first time this year our younger groups. A thanks to Claire Bailey MLA, Green Party for sponsoring DU Dance (NI) to enable us to use Parliament Buildings Stormont – we raised the roof!

December 2018

Away Day

Our Youth Steering Group had a great weekend away in Bushmills in June.  Thank you to Youth Hostel Association of Northern Ireland for facilitating this through their Gather programme.  The Steering Group worked on future planning for the company, a campaign to save the arts and also enjoyed the sun and the beach.  We plan to meet up again in Belfast for another planning day in October and to see a performance if we can.

September 2018

At our Day of Dance, which was held this year in June in Ballymoney, our Youth Steering Group for 2016/17 was elected.  The group was first established in 2012 to enable young people to influence, input ideas and feedback on the company’s work. Youth Steering Group members for 2016/17 elected by their peers are Alisha Platt, Anastazja Milczrarek, Esperanca Gusmao, Kasia Kozuch, Lauren Forrester, Lauren Cunningham, Mackenzie Douglas, Rebecca Wallace, Rhiannon Stewart, Sandra Saldanha De Rosa, Shania Vitor and Weronika Nowak. We are looking forward to working with you all this coming year.
DU Dance Young Ambassadors for the coming year are Lisa Ryan and Sean O’Neill.