Growing up in dance (GuiDANCE): Capturing the co-creation process
The GuiDANCE project, an interdisciplinary co-creation project funded by the ESRC Impact Acceleration fund, was a collaboration between the University of Exeter, One Dance UK, the Royal Ballet School, and the Royal Academy of Dance. The project involved two advisory groups – a student advisory group and a dance teacher advisory group.
The project has drawn on expertise from the Exeter Medical School, specifically the Children & Young People’s Mental Health Research Collaboration (ChYMe), and from Exeter’s Sport and Health Sciences. Furthermore, it had a strong education component, and it drew expertise of dance teachers within the advisory group and the Royal Academy of Dance teacher training organisation.
The GuiDANCE project aimed to enhance education and create sustainable practices in growth and development in the dance sector and it has achieved its aims by creating guidelines for best practice to promote the physical and mental wellbeing of children participating in dance. This key outcome was accomplished by facilitating two co-creation workshops. Bringing together the project collaborators and advisory group members enabled the development of the guidelines.
The Engagement and Impact Award enabled us to employ the skills of Laura Sorvala to document the co-creation process with her illustration skills and to create a visual output for us to share these guidelines for best practice with the dance sector. Laura’s involvement has enabled the dissemination of the findings in an easily shareable and accessible, visual form. In turn, this is helping to ensure that the output of the project has greater impact, beyond academic-facing outputs.
A dissemination event is planned for Spring 2023 to share the project findings and outputs, Moreover, the research team has secured a small pot of funding from the AHRC Impact Cultivation fund to support the development of the GuiDANCE Network. This will enable the collaborators (One Dance UK, the Royal Ballet School, and the Royal Academy of Dance) to reunite to reflect and advance the progress made in the co-creation workshops. This will involve working to establish the GuiDANCE Network to support and sustain this work going forward, and to continue working with illustrator Laura Sorvala, who will support the project by creating resources for the dance sector.
See further work by Laura Sorvala
