Summer Intensive 2024: The art of togetherness: Soft Skills in dance

This eclectic mix of inspiring courses with artists from the leading edge of community and participatory dance is a chance for you to learn, experiment and reflect with like-minded colleagues.

There are ten courses to choose from, taking place virtually and in person. All of the courses are:

• Suitable for all career stages - often encouraging an effective blend of them for mutual learning and co-mentorship - for students, teachers and leaders of community and participatory dance and other performing arts specialists with an interest in the field

• Focused time to fill up on inspiration for the year to come by deepening your current practice or exploring new avenues

• Cost-conscious with fee reductions for Members of People Dancing

• A chance to network with peers as passionate as you from near and far, the welcoming People Dancing team and a general emphasis on respite, refreshment, and the joy of together!

This one-day course will explore what soft skills you already hold as a dance artist, how you can describe them to employers and funders, and how you might want to grow them for your own professional development.

Soft skills are sometimes known as life skills, 21st century skills or social and emotional skills. They are key to successful communication, smooth negotiation, thoughtful leadership and happily dancing participants. They lie beneath all the technical know-how that you have, allow you to operate in challenging contexts and help you develop as a self-aware, reflective, highly employable practitioner.

However, they can be vague, underused and hard to describe. Even if we can list them – for example, understanding and appreciating differences, recognising strengths, taking care of others, patience, flexibility and adaptability, conflict resolution – to name a few – we often don’t appreciate when we are using them or articulate them well to potential employers, collaborators and funders.

This course will draw on the FREE easily accessible Empowering Dance Soft Skills Digital Guidebook, created via an exciting pan-European collaboration.

"What skills do we practice when we share a dance experience? Connect eyes, offer a hand, or balance together in a moment? What is happening? We are practising the skills of togetherness.” Soft Skills: Digital Guidebook

This course is ideal for both early career and more experienced artists who wish to develop their practice and learn from each other.

Above image credit: Courtesy of Empowering Dance (archive of the project).

Host or Publisher People Dancing UK