15 November 2025 to 10 January 2026
Produced in partnership with Tenfoot Dance Company and performed and filmed at locations across North Lincolnshire as part of ‘The Woman’s Movement 100’, a major national touring project, Arc in Movement presents a film and multi-media installation at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, shining a light on our unique place and community.
You may have spotted a procession of people dressed in stone coloured costumed at key landmarks and locations around Scunthorpe during October 2025?
This was our intergenerational Arc in Movement community cast made up of 50 women and a hand full of men representing the suffragette and suffragist movement. Aged between 13 and 80 our cast came together to rehearse and discuss locally relevant themes to mark the count-down to 100 years since all women gain equal rights to vote in 2028. Arc in Movement celebrates our area and our stories through movement, dance, visual art and poetry.
Filmed on location at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, Normanby Hall Country Park, Julian’s Bower, Winn Street, Frodingham footbridge, Keadby Bridge, the Ridgeway walk, East Common Lane, the High Street and British Steel, this dance for film piece captures our heritage and looks towards a future that continues the local themes of industry, landscape, community, unity and strength that runs alongside the ongoing struggles towards equality. Alongside the film you will see installations relating to the creation of the piece, documentary photography and interventions design to provoke discussion and reflections about the past and present shining a light on our unique place and community. Workshops spanning a range of creative arts will take place in the exhibition space for the duration of the show to continue the discussions.
This long-term project is the vision of Fred Garland of Ten Foot Dance Company, working with visual artists and academic research around female equality, emancipation and democracy. North Lincolnshire picks up the baton from the previous Hull chapter called ‘Turning the Tide’ which explored the role of women in the renewable energy and offshore wind sector to produce a creative, performance-based film and exhibition that featured dancers and female scientists. Our project takes it’s starting point from the Scunthorpe-made steel of the Humber Bridge to tell our stories, and point to a future that is shaped by our landscape, industries, allyship and action. As well as the movement cast the exhibition has been shaped by students from the North Lincolnshire Engineering UTC, steelworkers and spoken word groups.
Aspiring to become part of a 2028 presentation to mark the centenary celebration of all women getting the right to vote in London – North Lincolnshire’s video and exhibits will combine with elements from Sheffield, Newcastle, Liverpool, Hull and other regions, to create a unified national project marking this important moment.
Turning The Tide – Hull Chapter video
Womens Movement 100: Angels of the North – Festival of the Mind, Sheffield.
The Cast’s reflections on Arc In Movement
Wendy Salter Poem
It starts with a vision,
A creative burst seeking light.
Pushing the plan to fruition,
What was a dream, is now in sight.
Gathering communities to help the cause,
People investing in the purpose.
Much more than rocking, walking, pause,
To the outside world a cult or circus.
We started as strangers simply dancing,
We put our faith and trust in Fred.
To our lives it’s been enhancing,
Our souls felt nourished and well fed.
We bared the cold and even a storm,
Fighting the chill as a beige conga.
Huddled close together to keep each other warm,
Adversities only made us stronger.
It’s fitting our journey wasn’t plain sailing,
The women before us fought tirelessly to be free.
In significance, we are definitely paling,
Sent to remind us via storm Amy.
Proud to part of this chapter,
Humbled to be a small cog in the grand scheme.
The essence, heart and purpose captured,
Privileged now to be a woman living the dream
A small contribution to the bigger picture,
I feel I’ve played a little part.
An ingredient to an ever growing mixture,
Dear future generations, this is just the start …….
Cast reflections
Emily
“I’m Emily, I did a spoken piece in the project of poetry at the 2021 Visual Arts Center in Scunthorpe. And I’m talking about pride within our communities. Pride is a word that can mean a lot. It can mean pride in your town. It can be pride in your community. It can be pride in your workplace, and pride in yourself and who you are. So, when we talk about pride, we talk about a lot of different things. I was a proud steelworker for 12 years and I still tell the stories of the time that I spent on the steelworks to all my work colleagues who are just always in awe of what I used to do. But then I’m also proud of where I came from.
Um, and I tell people the stories of my town, uh, and sometimes they don’t believe what I’m telling them as well about where I grew up and what we used to do in, in, in town for fun, for, for laughs. Um, I, I spent 12 years on the state of works. Um, and that was hard work. Uh, it’s where I transitioned and I think that was difficult for a lot of the guys who were there.
Um, they didn’t understand what that meant. So there was a lot of fear and negativity, um, from the guys I worked with in my department. They, they sometimes didn’t know how to talk to me. Um, they, they may be feared that they would be reprimanded and there’s always that fear of change and fear of something new. Um, but then there was a lot of misconceptions because I was now female.
I would answer technical questions as an engineer and I would be put away, like pushed to the side of no, no, no. Well, we’ll, we’ll ask it again. And a guy had to exactly what I’ve just said. And they’d be like, okay, we’ll go with that. So it was frustrating. So a lot of times, um, that was only my department because the rest of the department I visited the 12 or 14 of them that I visited on site.
They were a lot more accepting and they would support me and they would ask me questions and my guys would go, you need to speak to Emily. She’s the technical expert on this. You need to speak to her. So yeah, they were really good. And they were the reason I stayed there. They really did support me and look after me. And then a lot of them took me kind of under the wing, almost like that, looking after your sister, your little sister. em
So that was really nice and that was really good. And that was, that was where you get a lot of pride in what you’re doing because you’re helping them and they’re looking after you and you’re feeling that, love there that wants to keep you and they want to look after you. So that was really nice.
And I can understand why it’s difficult for my work colleagues who I’ve worked with in my department because they’d known me as my old self, my new self was totally different and totally, totally different. When I look back at my old self now to where I am here, it’s like it’s a totally different life, a totally different space, a totally different person. And it’s quite amazing that friends I still have from the Steelworks and friends I have at home, I’ll say that person that I was, was very unhappy and very depressed and there’s a lot of negativity with that.
But where I am now is amazing and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. But from that, focusing on the pride that I got from work and the pride of supporting work through my union work, I was asked to go to Pride in Hull with Unite the Union. So then from the Steelworks, I represented us, I carried the flag, uh I did that and I went back to work.
And then I got asked to go to Leeds Pride as well. So I did Leeds Pride a couple of times with Unite the Union from the Steelworks in Scunthorpe, which was fantastic.
And then I came home one time and I thought, why don’t we have a pride in Scunthorpe? We should be proud of who we are.
We should be proud of what we achieve. We should be proud of where we are. So I started Scunthorpe Pride. I started first of all Scunthorpe LGBTQ Society to provide a safe space for members of the community that need a safe space. Not just LGBTQ people, we’re talking people with disabilities, ethnic minorities.
It was just a safe space that people could come, feel safe, open up, and we were always there to support them. So there was that community, bringing people together, which was a new thing that people have not really understood until we started doing it. They didn’t think there maybe was a need for it, but there kind of was. And that led on to starting Pride.
So to run the LGBTQ society, I had a group of women helping me. So between the five of us, all women, all within the LGBTQ or ethnic minority or disability banner, they put me as the chairperson and they were all my either project managers or my support workers or uh
entertainment planners.
That’s that’s who we had them for how we started it. And I structured it all started the pride movement within Scunthorpe. And then we had a first pride three years ago. And that was very unique because you think no one will come. So that first year we told the council that we’d probably get about three or four thousand people.
We had five and a half thousand people in the first year. So it was, it was evident that it was needed and it was evident that five women running that project, supporting everyone and standing there on stage and saying, I said that, you know, that, word pride can mean a lot. It can mean that pride in the community, pride in the Steelworks because the Steelworks donated 10,000 pounds from Unite the Union.
So they were really proud to support us, what we were doing. We had all different businesses wanting to come forward and support us. So you’re bringing that community of people together on one day. And it didn’t matter.
We had Starlight Arts there doing the first act on stage at Scunthorpe Pride with Starlight Arts, who’ve been involved in this project as well, doing a Makaton dance on our stage. That was really good. So we had disabilities, then we had belly dancers, ethnic minorities. We had all sorts of different people. We had loads of local bands as well.
And we tried to bring businesses in from the local area so that you’re giving back to the community. So it was a very community driven event, a community focused, community based. So it made that feeling even more special. And I think the words of the MP at the time was, we’ll raise a flag. We’ll raise a flag. And I said, I think it’s a bit more than a flag raising love. We’re going to bring three and a half thousand people to the centre of Scunthorpe and have a party. She just looked at me and said, what?
Yeah, I’m going to have a stage and we’re going to have 15 acts and we’re going to have drag artists and we’re going to have face painting in a bar. And she was like, oh, okay. I’m going to have a market. It’ll be really good. You need to come down. And when she came, she was walking around and she was just like, I had no idea when you said pride, what that meant. And I was like, yes, that’s it. Welcome to pride. Pride is for everyone. And that was the motto all the way through.
Pride is for everyone and it was on the back of all our jumpers and it’s our little tagline on our Scunthorpe LGBTQ Society. So that Pride movement led on to year two where we had 9,900 people and in our third year, which was this year, we had 14 and a half thousand people of the day. So next year.
We’re going to have to push even more to bring the community out and support us.
And that will be absolutely fantastic. But there’s always that underlying of it’s about the community, it’s about bringing people together and about people who have negative views sometimes. em Like the guy that said, I bet you wouldn’t let me come down and wave my St. George’s cross there, would you? And I was like, yes, come down, support it.
Bring your flag and wave it because pride is for everyone.
It’s for you as well and you have every right to wave your English flag in England. Please come down and support the day because then you will understand what being part of a community is and you will understand why we support you. I don’t think he ever turned up. I don’t think that was the answer he was after. I think he was after a fight and I was like, no, no, please come down, experience it and understand the community and understand who we all are regardless of where we’ve come from regardless of our ethnicity or our abilities or gender or race or religion.
We have a lot of support from religious people as well, different religious communities, which was great. I did not expect that, but that was good. So, um, the main support came from the steelworks. Like I said, they, they, United the union donated 10,000 pounds from the, from the steelwork and lots of different businesses.
So that, that pride within the steelworks is evident that it’s there and you can tell through the history of that where it comes from.
Cause if you’re thinking about the hundreds of years that it’s been there, the steelworks and all the different people that have come to work on the steelworks, from different areas, different countries, whether it be during the First World War when there was a boom of people coming in to work. So, they needed to come from the Commonwealth countries.
And the Commonwealth at that time was huge. They’re still there. think there’s 49 member states of the Commonwealth. So, they can come from anywhere. And one of my apprentices on the steelworks, he was from Barbados. He used to tell us stories about catching flying fish on the beach for breakfast before I went to school. It’s like, man, you had a different upbringing. I used to just go down and make toast, mate. I didn’t have to catch my breakfast first. So it was, you know, accepting of everyone. And I always used to get female apprentices as well. So, the young females who come through, nurture them through, show the understandings of what it means to be an engineer, what it means to work on the steelworks, why they can do the same as what the men can do and be as successful as the men can be. And some of them still work on the steelworks and they’ve gone on to be engineer level. So, they started off as apprentices, went through electricians, they’ve now gone on to be engineers. And that is fantastic. That’s a legacy that will carry on going. The number of women in engineering has been increasing year on year. So that’s fantastic. It’s not, it’s not the detriment of men because it’s not cake. By giving someone a slice, you don’t diminish the amount that’s left over for everyone else. Instead, what it does is it actually enriches the diversity and the thinking. So, it gives you more options and that, that kind of takes some time to get through to people, I think. So, by doing that, it gives you more options of ideas and things you can do. And now they’re finding that actually coming on the steelworks, there’s a lot more women that want to be engineers, want to start on the steelworks as apprentices. And they’re coming through those, those ranks to work up. Just like the guys do, they start at the bottom and work their way up as well. They might be as a graduate, but they’ve still got to start.
A department worked their way up. That’s how that works. When it went to the second world war, we had a massive influx of female employees taking over all the roles that the men were doing. Because the men went off probably with the Anglin regiments or the fusiliers or whatever they were going off to be with, whether it be in the Navy or the RAF. And they were supporting the war effort. So, the women came in to take over those roles. And that was vital because those places or those welders or those, people making steel were majority women for those five years during the second world war.
There’s actually a memorial in the centre of Scunthorpe that has a man walking along with a woman on a bike and that is dedicated to those people who supported during the war because it was the men went off and the women did the work, they had to and they did really, really good work and at that time there would have been thousands of women so they were probably coming from all over the country to do that and all over the Commonwealth again to do that. So we have a very big multicultural society there and um a very big community influx.
So, that community influence, when the men came back, all the women had to give up work again. But probably some of them didn’t want to because they’d realized that actually we can do this just the same as the men, if not better. So, that’s it, you know. They carried on fighting all the way through and quite rightly.
We have a lot of women engineers now on the steelworks, which is fantastic. Um, I know some have left as plate mills shut down. There was a number who works there that I knew who’ve moved on. One’s moved to Hull and other one has moved down south. Um, but then some of my apprentices that I’ve got, one of them works at the, um, calcast. She’s an engineer now. So that’s fantastic. You know, there’s always that progression on it’s always people coming in to take that spot. That’s good. I mean, it’s a real community of people. And that’s evident when it comes to Mad Friday on Christmas. You go out and every bar will have someone in there that you know. And when I first transitioned, about two or three years after I first transitioned, and everyone had kind of got used to it. And Emily, this is Emily coming along to fix up. They’d be like, Emily, can you just come and fix this for us? Yeah, no worries. I’ll come down and fix that. We’ll be there in 20 minutes. Oh, you’re amazing, Emily. Thank you so much. So, I’ll go down there and fix it. And then I went out with a friend of mine and we walked into the main bar in Scunthorpe, the Bluebell, and it was just packed full of steelworkers. And as soon as I walked in, everyone went, Emily, oh, amazing. Come here, have a drink. Come and spend some time with us. It took us about an hour to get to the bar, but by the time we got to the bar, I’d had seven drinks.
I was like, I just, I can’t take all this thing. I just, I need space. But it was fantastic. And that’s that community of guys who have taken you under the wing and supported you through and said, thank you for all the support that you’ve given us over the year. So that was, that was very unique. And my friend said, I’ve never experienced anything like that before. She was from Leeds and she was that blew her away. She was like, I don’t, I don’t understand why, why Scunthorpe thought gets bad press when I’ve just experienced that. And that was, it was very emotional for her. She, she, couldn’t understand it. And then I said, that’s Scunthorpe thought.
We, know, we, we have pride in everything we do. it was fantastic. And even now, you know, we’re still carrying on with the with the Scunthorpe Pride and we’re still carrying on with the steelworks. We’re fighting to keep the steelworks open for future generations. And I’m still with the union and I’m still involved in that fight, even though I’m not on the steelworks anymore.
I moved to Rolls Royce as an engineer, but in my heart, I’m still a steelworker. And I think that stays with you. And I know people, one of the engineers from Plain Mill that moved away, she’s a steelworker through and through. Still to this day and she’s been gone 10 years and she’s she’s she always says to me I can’t help it Emily I’m a steel worker because it stays with you forever you cannot you cannot erase that no matter how much you want to so it’s very unique it really is unique
It’s a lot more unique than people think. So oh when I have visitors that come to Scunthorpe, I’ll joke to them that, don’t worry, I’ll take you around and show you the sights of Scunthorpe. It’ll only take half a day. And it doesn’t because when I start showing them the sights, the real sights, things like the 2021 Visual Arts Centre and the Elizabeth Quarter that’s there now.
And that modernization and the things that are happening next to the UTC, the technical college, you know, that UTC is brand new and they can look at that engineering university there. And that is very unique. then taken to the centre of town where we’ve got the pods and you can walk through central park and they’re like, there’s a lot of trees here. It’s like, yeah, Scunthorpe is a city of trees. So you know, it’s very unique. You’re walking through a woods and you’re in the very centre of town. know, that amazing space where they had an orchestra come and play the planets by handle. So that was fantastic. Bring the community together for people to experience that culture and classical music they’d never probably heard before. So amazing.
And then I can take them to the museum so they can see the heritage of who we are, where we come from and why we’re here. But then you can show them the natural beauty. Take them to somewhere like Burton on Stather or to Alkborough and see Julian’s Bower at Alkborough and look over the valley and look, look over the Humber where the Humber is born from the Trent and the Hughes. That natural beauty is everywhere if you know where to look and you can go for a walk along in Bottisford, just outside of Scunthorpe. You can see all the deer in the fields. You can see the foxes and the badgers and that natural beauty in the countryside is there if you know where to look for it.
And then once you’ve done that little walk up to the Royal Ashby Ville nature reserve, you can take them to other places within Scunthorpe and show them shops that are unique because we have an influx of Eastern European people and they’ve opened shops and businesses and you walk along Frodingham Road, front of the road and you can see the Eastern European shops and the shopkeepers want to help you all the time. Oh, would you like to try some klefka? Here, try this. Oh, pierogies. This is what you do. This is how you cook a pierogi. Oh, you want to try this bit of chocolate biscuit? Yeah, have this. That’s amazing.
My friend was blown away and he came, he came to, to here with me. Um, and he was from the Shetland Islands. Um, and he works at Rolls-Royce. Uh, and he was just like, yeah, this, this is like being back home because everyone knows everyone and everyone’s welcoming. Yeah.
Because we have many different people here and no one judges anymore. No one, no one, is bothered by who you love or how you look or how you act and that’s how it should be. A friend of mine said, Scunthorpe’s really backwards, it doesn’t even have a gay bar. I said, that’s because Scunthorpe doesn’t need a gay bar. It’s because every bar is gay bar. Because when you work on the steelworks and you go out, they don’t care who you love. They don’t care what you look like. What they care is that you work really hard and that you’re there to support them. And at the end of the day, after that, they’re not that bothered. So every bar is a gay bar, just the same that every bar is a straight bar, just the same that every bar is accepting of everyone because they don’t care. As long as you don’t go in there and try and cause any trouble, nobody’s bothered. They’re quite happy. And that’s what that community is about. It’s getting everyone together, having a laugh, work hard, play hard and, and enjoy your time and showing them those little sites from around it really opened my eyes as well to my own town because I’ve just been driving through it without realizing, actually yeah, there is a lot of trees here. Oh actually yeah, Central Park with all the flowers and everything does look really nice. Oh actually yeah, when I drive out along the out to Curtin along the the ridge top there and you can see across all the valley. That’s, that’s actually unique.
We don’t have that anywhere else. It’s really lovely. No, no. Okay. Yeah. Go take a walk in an afternoon around, um, Normanby park for the kids. You know, they can climb the trees, they can run through the woods, they can eat in the cafe. And yeah, that’s kind of unique. We don’t have that anywhere else. You can look at the deer and look at the animals. Then we, then we go home, you know.
So it was, it’s really good. And I think that’s why a lot of people who come to Scunthorpe are a bit amazed by the stories that they hear compared to what they find when they get there and the things that they look at. And it’s unique. It’s a little quirky, a little bit, okay, you’ve got this lovely little place and then just over that side of the road, there’s the steelworks, which is sat there breathing like a dragon and smelling like a volcano, rumbling and moving and out the other end is coming steel. Yeah, there’s that unique quirkiness to it that I think is quite amazing. And by having people come and visit me and stay with me, that’s opened my eyes to my own community that made me realize actually, even though I live down in Derby now during the week.
I’m never going to give up my home in Scunthorpe. I will always say that that is my home. That’s where it is and that’s where I’m staying”
Liesel Dickinson
Arc in Movement, the unexpected chapter, celebrating the diverse women and heritage of her own quite modest, Steel, Industrial Garden Town.
Such a privilege it was for her to see Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire represented, the only town among five great northern cities, part of this unique Women’s Movement 100 Project
… wonderful the opportunity to dance again, wearing her quite exquisite couture gown.
She’d had a little involvement in making it happen -in the beginning, the trepidation, could they recruit the numbers for this ambitious project and aspirationally diverse, intergenerational community cast?
A dancer in Hull’s Turning the Tide chapter, she knew from experience, if people signed up, like her, they’d be sure to have a blast!
With a reunion and, more than fifty dancers recruited including, for the first time, male allies, dancing, visible supporting some quite riotous women, aged from their early teens right through to more senior years.
Inspired by the diverse women who led before them, in the Suffrage Movement, the local Women of Steel, all their struggles and accomplishments – all their combined blood, sweat and tears!
It seemed poignant to her, when she had first read that women in Scunthorpe had been “too busy surviving” to get involved in the Suffragette fight… later she’d discovered Eliza Rooke’s inspiring story – a connection with a previous chapter and, causing her,
some delight!
Eliza was born in North Lincolnshire – Brigg, in 1824, one of the eleven women who in 1851 formed Sheffield Women’s Political Association, with, the first manifesto for woman’s suffrage in Great Britain.
That she had only belatedly learned of Eliza’s story, perhaps a consequence of bias, women’s erasure from the focus of history, the way history has too often been celebrated and written?
Arc in Movement a project embedding opportunity, community, allyship, equity, empowerment, a sense of belonging, collaboration- inclusive by design.
In the exhibition space, around and through the barriers, in familiar locations, as Amy created a storm, determined, the dancers, sometimes pausing, graceful, in statuesque pose, then continuing in procession, dancing, leading on, inline
And her a dancer with CP – three years since she’d danced in Hull’s chapter, her body a little older, dancing a little more difficult, as if in solidarity with women of the suffrage movement, sometimes her body did quite
resist!
Dancing though the pain, inspired by the achievements of Rosa May Billinghurst, Adelaide Knight and other diverse suffragettes, using her wheels to get to and around locations, with more added rest breaks, still joyful, dancing on, she did persist!
Powerful, hauntingly, creatively beautiful, the sets, lighting, locations, costume and choreography – in the completed film, the dancers accompanied by the community’s poetic words – spoken and, in sign.
This quite amazing Arc in Movement project, bridging the opportunity gap, an equitable stage for Scunthorpe, North Lincolnshire, this wonderfully diverse and supportive community, to really shine
Pauline
“I am so very fortunate to have had opportunities in my advancing years to be both inspired by as well as motivated to a point that enables me to engage in such quality, creative projects, which both “Turning the Tide” (Hull- 2022) and “Arc in Movement” (Scunthorpe 2025) have presented, me with. Wonderful for me, since creative activity within the fields of dance education and dance performance is something which has underpinned my whole life.
Having lived in Liverpool/ on The Wirral for some 45 years, I returned to my roots in 2013 to live once again in East Yorkshire. Over the last few years back in Hull, I have worked closely and regularly on several projects with my close friend and colleague, Fred Garland of Hull’s ‘Tenfoot Dance Company.’ Now working in a voluntary capacity due to my disabled as well as retired status, Fred has enabled me to grasp the opportunity to continue to contribute through work in the community and so utilise my dance and teaching experience in a positive and appreciated way. With the added bonus of keeping me motivated and inspired more than ever as I age.
Regarding the above ‘retired and disabled’ bit :-
- I walk with a limp.
- I wear a leg brace/ AFO
- I use crutches often but just so that I can go faster and sometimes even dance using them! (I actually choregraphed and performed a dance piece as part of a production by Liverpool’s “Growing Older (Dis)gracefully” dance company, known around Merseyside as ‘The G.O.D.’s’. I must however, try and use a different name for this dance pieces I get some disapproving glances when I refer to it as a ‘Crutch Dance’?
- I use my wheelchair very occasionally, on bad days, which are thankfully not too often.
- I can still perform chair- based dance.
- I can still choreograph/ teach dance technique to others from my chair/using crutches.
- I can’t complain, I’ve dance for half a century or more! Some people have never danced!
I was so lucky to have had a happy and pretty normal childhood which included Classical Ballet Lessons.
Who knew then that my passion for dance would not only shape my life but last a lifetime?
Today, my feet, they hurt me, well no, that’s a lie. It’s just my right one really.
So, I limp, I stumble, I find a way and get around. Well Nearly.”
Ruthie’s Transcript
“Okay. My name is Ruthie Levy. I’m originally from the United States.
I moved to Europe about 13 years ago to get my master’s degree. But I also really wanted to live in Europe and work in Europe because my entire family is is European. My mother’s Dutch. My dad was French and Spanish. And so there was something really special about being able to, you know, live and explore where they came from. Um, I moved to Beverly about three years ago for, um, for a job working in biofuels. And, um, and I’ve I’ve loved it. It’s been fabulous. Um, and I think one of the things that I’ve really wanted to do is try to build a bit more community where, where I live, because I’ve moved a lot. Um, you know, it’s every 2 to 4 years I’ve moved to a new location, and while I do build temporary communities, and sometimes those friendships do last beyond the time that I’m living there, it’s it’s not a physical community that is really present with me. And, and I think that’s something that I’ve missed. And I think it’s something that I’ve realised is really important for, for the way the world is today, for us to be able to, um, live in, in a more sustainable way and, um, and support each other, I think across, um, yeah, across the world. Um, I also have a very strong love of dance. Um, I’ve been dancing pretty much since I was a kid. All different styles, and for me, it’s a way that I can express myself. I can express my feelings and emotions and my mood and express how the music speaks to me. And so when I had the opportunity to join a project that combines dance and community with such a strong message behind it, that for me was, I mean, it was such an amazing opportunity that I couldn’t I couldn’t pass up, and I’m so grateful that I was able to be part of it. Um, I think there’s been recently, you know, in, in the past, I don’t know, 5 to 10 years and maybe longer than that. But where it’s become really present is this very strong feeling of polarisation and division in the world. And there you can feel forces, um, in power who are really trying to drive that polarisation and division. And it suddenly creates these breaks in community and it suddenly creates this, um, just this inability to, to to talk to people because people are scared about talking to each other. And, and I think that I think it’s a shame and I think it’s, um, it’s scary in some ways. And, um, so having this message of trying to, you know, trying to bring community together and trying to say that actually everybody has has rights and liberties and we are all we are all human beings and people on this earth and there shouldn’t. Where is the purpose of having division other than for the purpose of control and power? So I think one of the things I really appreciated about this project was bringing, you know, women together who are from across generations and from different walks of life and having them collaborate on a project, having us collaborate on this project together. It has built such a strong sense of community. And it was it was really beautiful to see all of that come together. And for me, it felt really special and powerful to to have that community.
There’s a part of the dance where we dance between ribbons. And each of us had a very, you know, a specified allocation of space where we could only walk as far as the next ribbon, and then we had to turn, and then we were able to walk to the ribbon that was behind us. And I was coincidentally in a very small space. And so it felt like a really strong analogy to how the world is starting to feel today, where there’s this attempt to put more constraints and restraints on us as women. And every time that I hit the ribbon and I turned around, it was it was like this fear and anxiety that just kept bubbling up. Of what? Why am I not able to get out of this box? And on the other side of the ribbon there was another woman who was doing the same. And I almost I wanted to reach out to her and say, we’re in this together, and it’s okay. I’m here. You’re here. We’re both in our boxes, but we can get out of these boxes. But but I couldn’t because they were on the other side of the ribbon. And and it really felt like we were. It felt like we were all placed in these boxes and in these constraints and.
And, I mean, there were there were parts of the dance where I, I, I honestly like was getting quite emotional and, and it was, I think in some ways really good to be able to express that in, in that moment.
I also think that while there, there is an attempt to move our world in that direction. We’re not there. And in real life, we can break through those ribbons and those barriers, and we can support each other. And we have to and we we, we have to come together as a community and help each other and work together to stand up for what we believe in, to stand up for our rights and to stand up for our liberties.
And if you think about generations past who have done this and have fought so hard, it’s.
It’s our duty to to continue that.
And we have to because if we don’t, who will? So yeah, I think for me that was just such a powerful part of of the project. And I’m really grateful that. Well, I’m, I’m grateful for the choreography that allowed us to do that and allowed us to experience that. And I’m really grateful I was able to be part of it, because I think it’s created a stronger resolution in me to.
To have to speak up.
If if I could speak with younger generations and future generations, I think a big thing that I would say is stay informed.
Learn as much as you can about history. Understand what is happening in the world. Truly understand it because it’s really easy. And I’ve seen this. If I look at myself and I look at others, it’s really easy to.
To take our liberties for granted. To take the world for granted. To expect that it will always be that way.
And to live life.
In in your in your bubble.
And I think I’ve been guilty of it as well in my life. And I’m really trying to to not to break out of that bubble and understand other perspective. Understand what’s happening in the world. Understand, um.
Understand what? What is what are the forces at play? Um, whether it be in politics or, you know, uh, economics or, um, history, like just really keeping your eyes open and being aware and not not sheltering yourself. I think especially for for those of us who live in quite privileged worlds where we either come from, you know, there’s there’s enough money to, you know, to not worry about.
About putting food on the table and having a shelter. And, um, for those of us who are white, who there is absolutely a level of privilege there that that I think we we completely take for granted and we don’t really appreciate what.
What some people, many people in this world Old face and go through and and I think so just. Yeah being aware. Speaking to people. Right. And really learning and being curious. So maybe it’s about curiosity and maintaining kind of a curious open mind.
I think that.
So what I said previously about, you know, past generations having fought for for our right for for a lot of our rights. One of those is the right to vote. And and if we if we don’t use that right, and we don’t vote, then we don’t have a say. And then we don’t have the right to, to complain or to to wonder why our view isn’t being reflected in the world and isn’t being reflected in society. And.
I mean, I think it’s it is. Well, it’s not a perfect system and it probably never will be. It is a system and it works pretty well. And especially if you look at some countries that don’t have voting rights or have it’s a facade that there are voting rights. We have, we have those voting rights, and we have the right and the power to have a say and that. Absolutely.
God, I don’t know. It’s.
I think it’s it is really important to use that power. And it’s it is, you know, if you think about different forms of, of either speaking up or protest, it is a legal and non-violent way of expressing that power. So, you know, that is let’s use it. Let’s let’s use that for our benefit to to make our voices heard. Because if it’s only if enough of us vote and speak up and use that power that it will come through into into politics. If not enough, if the majority of people who are voting are white men, then it is their wishes that will come through as the voices that are being, being heard. So, so let’s let’s speak up as as women across the country. It’s absolutely our, our, our duty really to, to support other women as well.”
