We Move – Leading the future of hip hop dance in theatre
Created by the hip hop community for the hip hop community and funded for two years by an Arts Council England Transforming Leadership Grant, We Move is a free 9-month leadership development programme tailored to the needs of hip hop dance creatives and producers looking to raise their game and elevate the art form to the next level.
We Move was originally led by nine leading hip hop dance companies – Artists4Artists, Avant Garde Dance, Boy Blue, Breakin’ Convention, East London Dance, Impact Dance, Uchenna Dance, University of East London and ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company. They joined forces as the We Move consortium to co-design this training and support programme to develop hip hop producers and creatives as future leaders. Over the course of the first year Impact Dance, Uchenna Dance and Artists4Artists chose to step away and Avant Garde were asked to step down. In 2022 the consortium consists of the remaining five organisations.
The programme offers essential producing and industry skills, one-to-one mentoring and coaching, plus the chance for its participants to pitch for professional development bursaries and paid work secondments in the arts sector. It is designed to reveal, inspire, support, invest in and champion current and next generation leaders from the hip hop dance community – the people who will innovate, develop and produce authentic work that evolves the reach of the art form; who aspire to best rep the hip hop dance community and culture; and who want to be the voice of change in the arts sector.
“I need this programme and I need these amazing creatives if I am to build the Hip Hop ecology” Alistair Spalding Chief Executive & Artistic Director, Sadler’s Wells
Year 1 was launched in the pandemic and took place online The full cohort of twelve completed the programme which included secondments with Ivan Blackstock/Altruviolet, Farooq Chaudhry/Sky Blue Productions, Boy Blue and Artolution. Eight personal bursaries were awarded and the programme offered online workshops with Nadine Patel, Kate Scanlan, Kymberlee Jay, Dirk Korell, Anand Bhatt, Gaylene Gould, Jonzi D, Rising Arts, Elin Morgan, Mikey J, Emma Zangs, and Vicki Igbokwe.
Year 2 has taken the learning from year 1 and along with the evaluation the programme has been redesigned to ensure it best meets the needs of the year 2 cohort.
We Move 2 is a carefully crafted programme which continues to offer mid career hip hop leaders (artists & creatives) the opportunity to elevate their skills with a bespoke and co-designed programme aimed at meeting the needs of the individual by the creation of individual learning journeys. The programme continues to offer hard skills sessions, coaching, mentoring, secondments, bursary, board shadowing and peer led learning groups as well as opportunities for the cohort to take on programme commissions, co designing, co-producing or hosting programme events.
Year 2 is supported by a crew consisting of Producer Rachel Evans, Enablers Vicki Igbokwe & Will Taylor, Evaluated by University of East London, and is led by Creative Consultant Gaylene Gould.
