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It has been an amazing year for Fireflies Dance, our first one as a non-profit Community Interest Company! There have been so many exciting things happening, including our show back in March and the recent exams at the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD). Below are some of our highlights:
We turned into a CIC. We are in the process of applying for funding and grants to provide even more children access to our dance classes and workshops.
Queen's Park Day 2023 was a fun performance opportunity for some of our dancers with the sun shining! We are looking forward to performing again this year on 15th September.
Natalie and Poppy started running classes at the RAD for the cancer community on Monday mornings, which will continue in September. More information about this here: United Kingdom | Ballet for the Cancer Community with The Royal Academy of Dance in partnership with Fireflies. Professional dancers AJ and Curtis Pritchard also attended a class in May! You can watch the video on YouTube here: AJ & Curtis Pritchard Dancing for a Cause at the Royal Academy of Dance (youtube.com)
Our two shows, Illuminate and Sparkle, were the culmination of a lot of hard work from all the teachers and students, who performed beautifully in front of a packed audience at the RAD theatre. It was such an exciting day that created very special memories.
Natalie won the RAD 2024 Community Engagement Dance Teacher Award in April for her creation of ballet classes for the cancer community with Fireflies: United Kingdom | Winners of the RAD Teacher Awards 2024 (royalacademyofdance.org). This is such an amazing achievement and the beginning of many exciting things to come in the near future.
Some of our ballet students, from Primary - Grade 4, took their RAD exams at HQ in June. We are so proud of them all and looking forward to progressing onto their next grade in September!
Having sadly saying goodbye to our much-loved teachers Miss Aisling and Miss Sophie, we welcomed three fantastic new permanent teachers to our team: Miss Pearl, who teaches our younger ballet classes; Miss Crystal, who teaches on Thursdays; and Missy, an assistant with us for many years, who is now teaching our street dance classes.
We hope you all have a wonderful summer holiday, and feel relaxed, refreshed, and raring to go in the Autumn Term!
All photographs by Neil Mockford
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