Ydance weekend at Granton Campus

One hundred sixty young dancers from across Scotland are heading to YDance Connections this weekend – an inspiring programme of workshops and creative sessions created and delivered by YDance and hosted this year by Edinburgh College at the local Granton Campus. The participants and group leaders have travelled from as far afield as Stornoway, Inverness, Lochgilphead and Isle of Skye to be involved in this unique event, which is part of the build up to YDance’s Commonwealth Youth Dance Festival in 2014.

Connections kicks off on the Friday afternoon with sessions in Capoeira, Bollywood, Samba, African and 40’s/50’s period dance workshops led by the Kennedy Cupcakes. The rest of the weekend is full of choreographic workshops, performances and an 80’s themed party on the Saturday evening– where the 160 dancers will join the YDance Team in a celebration of 25 years of YDance (Scottish Youth Dance).

Edinburgh College dance lecturer Jo Turbitt said: “‘We’re delighted to be hosting YDance’s Connections weekend at the college’s Performing Arts Studio Scotland and to be taking part in the celebration of the brilliantly talented young dancers we have across the whole of the country.

“YDance Routes is an important project that helps broaden the range of professional destinations available to the next generation of dancers, so we support it fully and hope the Connections weekend helps them develop along their own paths. The energy and enthusiasm of our youth dance community is always hugely impressive and we hope they can take full advantage of our facilities to learn from each other. We hope to see some of these groups again at YDance’s Commonwealth Youth Dance Festival.’

The groups taking part are 6.1.0. Dance Academy (Fraserburgh), An Lanntair (Stornoway), Dalriada Youth Company (Lochgilphead), Denny High Dance Academy (Denny), East Lothian Youth Dance Company (Musselburgh), Eden Court Young Dance Company (Inverness), Exquisite (Lochgelly), Fusion Youth Dance (Aberdeen), Glasgow Youth Dance Company (Glasgow), Ihayami Fusion (Edinburgh), Indepen-dance Young 1’z (Glasgow), right2dance (Paisley), Runamuk (Edinburgh), Scottish Ballet Youth Collective (Edinburgh), SkyeDance Youth Company (Portree), Unusual Suspects (Edinburgh) and SiMY Dance (Glasgow).

The Connections weekend is part of YDance Routes, a two year programme that aims to inspire, develop and broaden the horizons of Scotland’s youth dance sector and is leading towards a Commonwealth Youth Dance Festival in Glasgow in 2014. YDance Routes is funded by Cashback for Creativity, the Educational Institute of Scotland and The Leverhulme Trust.