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Invisible Disabilities: A report on removing barriers for artists and delegates with Invisible Disabilities from attending Showcase and Festival events

Commissioned by Pavilion Dance South West, UK

Report Summary

Second Hand Dance is a disabled-led dance company driven with care by Artistic Director Rosie Heafford and Executive Producer Claire Summerfield. Established in 2013, we create touring shows and digital dance experiences for children and adults. Based in England our work has a growing international profile as well as local and regional impact. We have toured the globe – from the UK to Europe, China, Canada, and the USA. 

As the company grew and opportunities to tour, create and present increased, Rosie also began to experience chronic pain and fatigue that presented barriers to her working. After a long, medicalised journey of diagnosis and acceptance, in 2017, Rosie began to identify as disabled as defined by the social model of disability. The conditions and expectations of working in the performance industry, in particular long working hours and travel, impact her health and pain levels and exclude her from participating. This is especially apparent at festivals and showcases where days are long with intense schedules.

In 2019, Surf the Wave commissioned a research project through its Curatorial Voice Programme, specifically designed to provide a space for dance programmers to discuss approaches to access that enable inclusivity, to think about change and to instigate new ways of working.

There were 3 questions central to this research:

• How can we better enable artists with access needs to get the best experience possible when touring work, particularly in relation to festivals and showcases where the artist has less control over their environment?
• What guidance is available, or what parameters are there, for the amount of access support artists can claim from funders?
• How can artists with invisible disabilities communicate their needs clearly?

Invisible Disabilities

According to a US survey, 74% of the billion people worldwide living with disabilities, do not have a visible impairment that immediately identifies them as disabled. Their challenges are less evident and therefore understanding their needs can be problematic.

The Social Model of Disability

Developed by disabled people, this model states that disability is created by physical, organisational and attitudinal barriers. That they are disabled because of these barriers and not because of their impairment or difference. The social model advocates for society to identify and eliminate these barriers thus enabling disabled people to be included and enjoy more independence, choice and control. More information can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_model_of_disability

Initial Research

During the spring and early summer of 2020, Second Hand Dance undertook the first phase of research of this project, Invisible Disabilities: Festivals and Showcases. We conducted seven interviews with individuals across the cultural sector in the UK including artists, festival directors, producers, directors of development agencies, choreographers and chief executives. 70% of those interviewed identified as disabled. Those invited to take part were chosen due to their leadership area within a particular sector specialism i.e. programming festivals of international work for young audiences; strategic responsibility for showcasing and internationalism within the ACE NPO portfolio; disabled artists with experience of attending or presenting work at festivals and showcases, and finally thought leaders specialising in Disability Rights and equitable access.

This research has led to the following recommendations:

Selection Panels:

• Introduce targets around disability and include work made by disabled artists.
• Make the application process accessible to disabled artists; think about how and where you advertise, the language and formats you choose, and the application format and schedule– are the timings achievable for disabled artists with chronic fatigue?
• Consider how disabled artists on selection panels can participate in the opportunity being presented.

Before the event:

• Add access as a standing item on every festival meeting agenda and embed it into your planning. Take responsibility for assessing access.
• Consult with everyone, artists and delegates about their access needs early on to fully participate. How can you gather access needs of artists and delegates at the point of booking? Be open about what you can support. Allow time in your schedules to have these conversations to prepare for what you need to provide. Treat each person individually, as they will have specific needs.
• Consider your base minimum access considerations (interpreters, alternative seating, quiet space etc) – what can you provide as standard and what can you add in if needed? Can you support access costs as part of your core budget?
• Be aware that people have multiple types of impairment and that many of these can be invisible. Try to treat each disability equally in how you provide for them.
• Think carefully about the physical spaces in your venue and how they can be used by disabled artists and delegates – quiet spaces (are they comfortable?), lunch spaces, and backup spaces. Consider where they are located, so they are accessible. Are there enough seating areas in all public spaces?
• Think carefully about networking activities – these are often events that disabled artists and delegates miss out on. What time of day are they held? (Often evenings can be the most problematic for those with chronic pain or fatigue conditions). Could you have events timed at different points in the day to cater for a variety of needs? Is the sound good enough? Is it too loud? Is there accessible seating? Are there too many people all invited at once? Can you make the events smaller? Provide clear information to artists and delegates about events to inform their decision-making – what is the event?
• Consider the routes between festival locations and whether this is a barrier for disabled artists and delegates.
• Send venue information in advance with full addresses of locations, suggested routes, and maps and provide a guide to the terrain – is it hilly? Are there cobbled streets?
• Brief all staff involved in the festival (including the core team, front-of-house, catering, and security) – this is essential. Ensure your staff know that there may be disabled artists and delegates attending the event and that they may have specific needs. Encourage them to be open, welcoming and mindful of everyone’s needs.
• Ensure staff are aware of disabled artists involved in the event and any specific needs in advance. If necessary, write this information down or store it securely online, so it is easily available to staff.
• Consider if additional training is needed for the staff or if they need individual access plans to create the most accessible working environment for themselves.

Schedules:

• Have schedules confirmed/released ideally 4 weeks in advance, as this will help people with disabilities to plan their time and raise any concerns early on. In the UK some disabled artists are able to apply for Access To Work funding to cover travel costs such as taxis or a support worker to travel with them – for international travel this needs to be done ahead of time with a clear schedule to base plans on.
• Consider issuing a hard copy of the schedule (with clear visuals of locations) as opposed to only online.
• Support longer or staggered get-in times, rather than a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Consider tech time the week before to allow for rest leading up to the performance.
• Build in rest times for both artists and delegates as part of the schedule to avoid disabled artists having to ‘miss out’.
• Try not to pack everything in and consider the needs of disabled artists to attend networking events, other performances, drinks etc. Discuss this with them when putting together your schedule.
• Have a Plan B with alternative options in case a disabled artist is unable to perform or participate. For example, switch to a digital presentation or re-schedule to another day.

Throughout the event:

• Continue the dialogue with your disabled artists and delegates. Have ongoing conversations and stay responsive to their needs – can you provide extra cushions or a mat to lie down at a venue? 
• Provide rest spaces and comfortable seating in the festival hub or networking/conference spaces.
• Check-in on travel requirements between venues – can you offer to book a taxi if needed?
• Ensure disabled artists and delegates have the name and contact details of someone in case there is a problem.
• Consider offering an additional ticket to networking events for a support worker or companion to go to in addition to the disabled artist/delegate.
• Could you provide a bursary to cover access costs for a support worker to attend the festival?
• Ensure dietary requirements are met.

After the event:

• Encourage feedback from disabled artists and delegates. Have a conversation with them about what worked or didn’t go so well.
• Take responsibility for areas where provision was insufficient. Take steps to initiate the changes needed in discussion with the disabled artist and/or delegate.

N.B. This document is a working document. It is designed as a prompt for reflection about how you, the showcase or festival, might improve on our suggestions. The best way to increase accessibility is to work with disabled people in your teams.

We’d love to hear your feedback and any areas of best practice you were able to implement. If you’d like additional consultation on how to make your festival, showcase or event more accessible to those with invisible disabilities please contact Claire Summerfield/Rosie Heafford, Second Hand Dance, via admin@secondhanddance.co.uk

Report Update: 02 December 2022

Invisible Disabilities Report 2022 PDF

Invisible Disabilities Report 2022 PDF (Large Print)

Ahead of the screenings of GRASS films and Night Tree in the USA, our Executive Producer Claire Summerfield gave an interview to the New Vic about the practice and processes that led to our digital work. Here's what she told them...

(With thanks to: The New Vic and Sarah Saltwick, Holden & Arts Associates)

1. How was your digital work created?

Grass was the company’s first major theatre commission, which premiered at the Unicorn Theatre, London in 2016 after a small regional tour. Since then it has toured to three continents and been seen by just under 15,000 children and their families – not bad for a show with a limited audience capcity of 75!

Night Tree was also created as a live show first. It premiered in 2019 where it had a week long run at The Gulbenkian and then moved to Pavilion Dance South West as their Christmas Show.

2. Why was this digital work created in this way?

When the pandemic hit the UK we stopped being able to share our work with our audiences, and we stopped being able to create work. You can imagine this wasn’t an easy period…However what it meant we could do was a lot of thinking; thinking about what we wanted to make and who we wanted to make it for. Slowly the idea for the Grass films developed. And Rosie, our artistic director, disappeared off to the park one day with a dancer and using her iPhone as camera explored ideas for a film.

The live show is really sensory – it's performed on live Grass (Sod), and the audience sit really close up to the dancers – so you smell the earth when you watch the show. We wanted to try and capture this in the film. Shooting on location was a must. But rather than re-create the live show we wanted to use the techniques of film – all the various shooting angles, perspectives and playfulness with time – to create something bespoke that grew and adapted to the artistic medium.

We had some money tucked away and after seeing the outcomes of our initial R&D decided we had to make the films.

We also did some research with our networks in the UK, Australia, Europe and the US and discovered there was very little, if any, dance being made specifically for broadcast for younger audiences. This sealed the deal and the two Grass films were made.

This led to Pavilion Dance South West commissioning the Night Tree films, which premiered in February 2021 – right in the middle of probably the UK’s toughest lockdown period. It was very heart-warming to think we could offer something joyful to families at such a tough time – and which also offered them a way to escape to the outdoors.

3. What was it like working in a digital format for your theater company?

Rosie has a very visual approach to creating work – our live stage shows are richly layered, the visual world supporting and enhancing the choreographic. This meant transitioning to film was quite easy. What we had to learn a lot about, was the technical elements and how different a process it is. The fact we were working from material we’d already made, made this easier. We devise most of our live work with the company dancers. In film, so much has to be planned so meticulously – such as the shot list, locations, schedules etc that it would have taken us a lot longer, and it would have cost a lot more, to make a completely new work that didn’t already have the choreography at its core.

Also, unlike live performance – and this seems obvious saying it now – but what happens before and after the shoot is the biggest bit of the work. This is the absolute opposite process for creating a show where everything happens before opening night. This has meant we’ve had to adjust our working practices quite a lot, and understand that just because the ‘film is in the can’ it’s a long time before we’ll be able to share this with our audiences.

4. What was the most interesting part of this process?

Wow, a big question!

I think for a company that is disabled led we have truly discovered new ways of reaching audiences; audiences which might not be able to, or don’t want to, come to a venue, disabled audiences or audiences that want to watch our work when they want to and how they want to.

All of work has sensory components to it, we want to create worlds for the work to inhabit that is experienced in truly visceral ways.

Film, as it is a fixed form that can be multiplied in many different ways in many different formats relatively cheaply, has meant we can offer audio described versions for audiences who are visually impaired, captioned versions for deaf audiences, and short accompanying sensory films for audiences with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities – something which is exceptionally hard to do when you are touring and doing only one or two nights at a venue.

We’ve been thinking a lot about how suitable our access tools are for our audiences – for example we discovered there is very little audio description in the UK that is created by children for children. So, we did precisely that for our next project – the Getting Dressed Films, which premiered last week.

We also quickly realised traditional text based captions are not suitable for children who haven’t yet learned to read, so how can we use animation and images so the youngest deaf children can access our work?

All fabulous creative processes that mean not only more young people can access our work, but that they have input on how its developed.

5. Is there anything else you'd like us to know?

I could go on! Making films has been such an extraordinary journey for us as artists and as a company. We’ve learnt A LOT, had an absolute ball, got over some challenges but most importantly managed to keep creating dance work to share with our audiences. We believe that every person deserves great art that includes and expands their experiences. Our vision is a world where dance, play and exploratory movement are central to the lives of children and adults, as vital and fluent as language. We think these films are helping us take a step towards this world.

We are delighted to announce that we have been awarded National Portfolio funding from Arts Council England as part of the 2023-26 cohort. We are committed to making our work more accessible to all and the funding we have been awarded will enable us to embed this further into our practice while also bringing stability. Since our beginning in 2013, we have been committed to making work with, and for, all ages and all bodies and we will now be able to grow our work with young audiences in particular. As a disabled-led company, we are especially pleased our work has been acknowledged. We would like to thank Arts Council England and our partners for their support on our journey so far and we look forward to continuing to work with them over the next three years.  

Artistic Director, Rosie Heafford, said: “I’m thrilled for Second Hand Dance to be invited into the portfolio. We strive to make beautiful, high quality and sensory experiences with and for young audiences and this investment will enable us to strengthen and create more opportunities for babies, toddlers and children to experience dance performance. As a disabled choreographer, this funding will also provide stability for us to test and ensure accessible working for me and our staff and collaborators. It feels like a fantastic step up as a company and I am incredibly grateful for all of the support from organisations, our board and our team over the past (almost) 10 years!”

On 13 October, FABRIC (the organisation recently formed from the merger of DanceXchange and Dance4) announced Artistic Director, Rosie Heafford, of Second Hand Dance as one of the recipients of an exciting new residency programme to 'provide artists based in the UK with financial investment, space, and staff time to explore new ideas and support the realisation of projects'. 

We are excited to start working with our current performers, new disabled/neurodivergent dancers, and participants, to develop and adapt a version of ‘We Touch, We Play, We Dance’ for a disabled and neurodivergent audience aged 3–18 years. 

"The support of FABRIC means we’re rekindling and developing new partnerships across the Midlands. We’re particularly pleased by how this project, through Fabric’s support, unites partnerships within the wider charitable sector with our partners, within more traditional cultural contexts.  We’re excited to be working in this way. - Rosie Heafford

Find out more about the Residency Programme: https://dancexchange.org.uk/new-fabric-residency-artists-announced-supporting-dance-development-in-the-uk/

Brighton and Hove’s first-ever building designed especially for dance has announced its first resident company will be Second Hand Dance. The Dance Space, which will open on 15 July 2022, will be run by South East Dance who have a longstanding relationship with Second Hand Dance.

As a Resident Company, Second Hand Dance will benefit from the facilities offered by the new building, including priority access to rehearsal space, use of its wellbeing spaces as well as accessible studios. Being based at The Dance Space means being able to make the most of the artistic community in Brighton and Hove and the wider region. South East dance will also create ways for us to share and seek feedback on their work in progress with our younger audiences.  

South East Dance’s Artistic Director Cath James said “We were keen to develop our relationship with Second Hand Dance as our first Resident Company because their work for children really resonates with our growing focus on early years audiences, supported by our Little Big Dance programme. And it’s vital that we support female, disabled-led companies like this one to thrive in a sector that continues to be very male-dominated.”

“As Resident Company, Second Hand Dance joins us at a particularly exciting time. With our new building opening, we’ll have the capacity to support Rosie‘s ambition for her company and provide that necessity – a home base, from which she can springboard into the future.”

Rosie Heafford says: “I’m thrilled! This is a chance to deepen our relationship and create space to explore questions around making and touring work for young audiences and being a disabled-led company. South East Dance has supported second Hand Dance since we first started in 2013 across various projects, professional development and business development opportunities. Their advice and encouragement across the years have been deeply valued.”

Read Rosie's interview with Arts Professional about the need for better access at showcases and festivals.

www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-disability

Second Hand Dance is a dance company that creates shows for children and adults. We’ve toured the globe – from the UK to Europe, China, Canada, and the USA. We create beautiful, sensory live dance experiences with a rich visual and participatory aesthetic such as We Touch We Play We Dance, a celebratory dance performance for 0-3 year olds that’s currently touring. We’ve also expanded into the digital realm to create dance films for young audiences like our Getting Dressed Films and Grass Films. Attending and performing at festivals and showcases has been vital to our development and success as an arts organisation.  

Many festivals are wonderfully welcoming. Often weeklong events, they offer a chance to see several shows a day from around the world alongside breakfast talks, networking lunches and symposiums. For delegates with disabilities (visible or otherwise) or chronic illnesses this can present an uncomfortable choice – miss out on the fantastic opportunities and experiences, or attend at significant personal, physical cost.

According to a US survey, 74% of the billion people worldwide living with disabilities do not have a visible impairment that immediately identifies them as disabled. The tricky thing with invisible disabilities is that they are hidden, and you may not want to or be able to declare them.

 I ‘came out’ as disabled in a blog post in September 2020. In reality I had been disabled for a while, but my journey until then had been private.  It was 2013, the year that Second Hand Dance was constituted as a company, when the first signs started – pain in my fingers and difficulty standing or walking for long periods. I was terrified. Back then the doctors thought it was arthritis and as a trained dancer and choreographer, it felt like the earth was dropping away from beneath my feet.

By 2017 the increased pain and fatigue that was affecting my ability to walk, work, socialise, cook, shower and generally function. I’d endlessly gone down medical and holistic avenues with the hope of ‘curing’ myself. My understanding of disability was very different then. I was at the point of leaving dance because I felt ‘I didn’t have what it takes’, particularly when it came to festivals.

Through tears and awkwardness, I admitted to my producer and to a few close friends about the toll that work, and particularly travel, was taking. That I was hiding the pain and fatigue of being unable to work for 2 weeks or more after a project ended. That travelling to a showcase often wiped me out for a week.

Since then I have gone through a lot of highs and lows, and received generous support in reframing my identity in the social model of disability  - towards understanding the barriers I experience. These barriers can be removed, and through Access To Work and Arts Council England funding I have a travel grant and I work with a team who can support me or step in to deputise if needed.

It is, however, important to acknowledge the huge journey it can take for someone to understand and accept a changing condition – especially when the phrase ‘no pain, no gain’ is a dance industry standard.

Acknowledging my disability to my family, friends and colleagues was only the beginning. I still have  to perform my role as Artistic Director and attending festivals and showcases is a part of that. However, the intense conditions and expectations of attending and working in festival environments can impact on my health and pain levels  - and exclude me from participating. But I don’t believe it has to be that way.

When I had to pull out of presenting my work at a festival, Surf the Wave commissioned research from Second Hand Dance to identify ways to support artists with access needs.

The first phase of research for this project took place in 2020. We conducted seven interviews with individuals across the cultural sector in UK including Artists, Festival Directors, Producers, Directors of development agencies, Choreographers and Chief Executives. 70% of those interviewed identified as disabled.

The research was a small start, and needs a wider network of people to learn from, but there are some key recommendations festivals and showcases can take away:

• Ask everyone about access requirements at the point of booking, artists, staff and delegates, and have a key contact that can support anyone with a disability before, during and after the festival
• Release schedules at least 6 weeks in advance, but ideally up to 3-6 months so delegates and artists can plan adequately and apply for funding to cover access needs
• Think carefully about the timing of networking events – early morning and evening events are often more difficult for artists and delegates with invisible disabilities.
• Build in rest times for both artists and delegates as part of the schedule to avoid disabled artists having to miss out.
• Provide quiet/rest spaces at key venues
• Offer comfortable seating or lie-down options with mats and cushions during networking events or talks
• Provide information on the venue, local terrain and services – what is seating like? is it hilly or cobbled? Can you easily get a taxi?
• If possible, offer bursaries to cover access requirements – not everyone will be able to apply for Access To Work funding
• Make companion tickets easy to buy, without proof of disability

Our research and its recommendations are a starting point from which more can be done to understand and improve the accessibility of festivals and showcases. The nature of festivals and showcases has changed due to Covid-19, with hybrid live and online options more common, offering some solutions and some additional barriers including time zones and internet access. Second Hand Dance is now working globally supporting the Assitej Executive Committee Access Committee in its thinking and planning. Having lived with invisible disability, and with festivals and showcases such an important part of my working life, I hope that event organisers take note and put accessibility and inclusion on their agenda for invisible and visible disabilities.

www.artsindustry.co.uk/feature/2815-the-word-feeling-better 

Rosie Heafford is the artistic director of Second Hand Dance, a disabled-led dance company based in Surrey that creates bold, accessible and sensory dance experiences, especially for children but also for adults. Here she explains why, with Covid, her work has suddenly changed.

In February 2020, in the first week after returning from maternity leave, I attended a workshop with Jenny Sealey from Graeae (the theatre company that works with disabled and deaf actors) called the “aesthetics of access”. It released a creative energy and I felt hugely excited by the creative possibilities of making my work more accessible. A little over a month later, England shut down and we entered lockdown. 

These two events have changed the way I create work for young audiences for ever.

Second Hand Dance creates bold, accessible and sensory experiences for children and adults. Established in 2013 we’ve toured the globe - from the UK to Europe, China, Canada, and the USA. We create beautiful, sensory, live dance experiences with a rich visual and participatory aesthetic such as We Touch We Play We Dance, a celebratory dance performance for 0 to 3 year olds that’s currently touring, and Grass, a show for ages 2 to 7 year olds that has performed over 20 times to nearly 15,000 audiences since 2015.

Collaboration with audiences is vital in the creation and performance of our work. With every project we make we engage with children and adults throughout our research. We dance together, talk together, observe together, and we allow this to inform our creative decisions. We believe that audiences of all ages, including babies, deserve a world where dance, empathy and play are central to their lives and as vital and fluent as language. 

We believe that audiences deserve a world where dance, empathy and play are as vital  as language.

Prior to 2020, the business of Second Hand Dance was to create and tour shows to theatres and other spaces including libraries, parks, hospitals, community centres and schools. We had worked in Special Educational Needs (SEN) schools and adapted shows to align with a relaxed format. The gentle and sensory nature of the shows was often easily adaptable for some disabled audiences.

However, I had never investigated how disabled-deaf or visually impaired audiences could access my work.

The pandemic meant that we had to stop performing live shows in front of audiences, but it also meant we had time to do some thinking and some research. After consulting with our international networks we discovered that there was very little, if any, dance being made specifically for broadcast for younger audiences. So one day I headed off to the park with my camera phone and a dancer, and that little experiment led me to discover the playful possibilities of dance on camera.

We used choreography from Grass, but re-set it in the natural world. We crawled spider fingers over logs and down trees and got down on the ground to give viewers a wriggling worm’s eye perspective. We weren’t simply filming the show, we were translating its essence onto film. We incorporated animation, and we used the colour, textures and sounds from our green location.

But we were missing the child’s voice in the creation process. So through an online call-out we gathered together a panel of children and families to give us feedback. We gathered this through Zoom watch parties, over the phone, questionnaires and asking families to film themselves watching the rough edits in their homes. Their input is at the heart of the Grass films 

Since then we’ve adapted three live shows into films, and throughout this process I’ve heard the call from the Graeae workshop to develop creative access tools for young audiences.  Our research with international networks had also revealed a lack of audio-described dance for young audiences. This was another call to action. 

Good audio description not only tells the audience what’s on screen, it also brings the spirit of the piece to life. For Grass Films we worked with audio describer Nathan Geering of Rationale Method to write poetic descriptions that would engage young audiences. However, I wanted to find a way to include children within the creative process too.

Inspired by a few pioneering projects where young people had been trained to become audio describers themselves, we set about bringing together a group of children aged 9 to 11 with audio describer Jenny Stewart Cosgrove. The group learned what audio description is, about visually impaired audiences, and brainstormed together how to describe dance. We’ve since worked together to write and record the descriptions for our Getting Dressed Films (pictured) - five short films that transform everyday clothes into celebrations of our individuality - an incredible feat given the fast paced action and abstract movement. There’s a fantastic social benefit here as well in that these children now have more awareness of the experience of their visually impaired peers.

Working on film gave me an opportunity to experiment with other creative access tools too, because different versions of the film can easily be created to suit various access needs. We’ve since experimented with adapting

• creative captions to include illustrations for audiences not yet reading
• visually representing music through rhythmic animation
• British Sign Language introductions to describe music and invite disabled/deaf audiences in
• “sensory films” for audiences who need a lower visual processing demand or the opportunity to explore a single idea for a longer period of time

There’s been a huge amount of learning, and it’s always central to our process to reflect on the audience we are making for. What information do they need? How do they receive it? How can we offer an equitable, if different, experience? For me, this works best when children are involved in the process of creating the access tools for their peers.

Working creatively with access tools for and with young audiences is now part of my practice and I’ll definitely be exploring it further. While it’s important from the point of view of inclusion, it’s also inspiring as an artist and I hope others will be inspired to take a creative approach to access tools too.

Ahead of touring Rosie spoke to Caro Moses from This Week Culture:

Disabled-led company Second Hand Dance head to the Southbank Centre shortly, and to Chats Palace in Hackney later this month, to perform ‘We Touch, We Play, We Dance’, a fab interactive show for very small children.

It’s a dance performance focusing on touch, and how, with consent, it’s used as a tool for connection and communication.

To find out more about the show, and about the company and creative force behind it, I spoke to Second Hand Dance’s founder and artistic director Rosie Heafford.

CM: Can you start by telling us what to expect from ‘We Touch, We Play, We Dance’? What kind of show is it and what happens?

RH: ‘We Touch, We Play, We Dance’ is a gentle and interactive show that invites everyone to connect through movement and touch. It’s set in the round, so audiences sit in each of the four corners of the dance space, either on floor cushions or benches.

Babies, toddlers and adults are welcome to watch or join in as the four dancers play games, without using words. You can join in with simple things like high fives or get up and boogie – we have a DJ mixing tunes live to get everyone in the mood to move!

CM: The theme of touch seems to be important here – and the fact that it’s intrinsic to child development. Can you elaborate on that a bit?

RH: Caring and nurturing touch is incredibly important to child development, there’s lots of scientific research into how it works and stimulates the brain – particularly between caregiver and child. Young children and infants first experience the world through their senses and touch is possibly one of the most important – it’s also the first sense that develops.

With this show I want to share the playfulness of touch – how it can lead into games and dancing. How touch, with consent, can be a tool for connection and empathy between strangers. Consent is another major theme for us – our dancers are experts at reading body language and allowing acceptance and rejection of their offer to join in.

Our youngest audience members aged up to three year olds have grown up through a pandemic, and we still need to be careful to keep people safe, but it’s also important to start breaking down the taboo of touch and develop an understanding of consent.

CM: What inspired the creation of this show?

RH: Originally it was a desire to create a show that focused on pure movement, the thrill of watching expert dancers move together without a storyline or props.

Touch is essential to dance, and I kept coming back to visions of four dancers using contact improvisation – the exploration of your body in relationship to others – as a starting point and wanting to invite the audience into the joy of moving with another body.

We started the research in 2017, and back then I was hearing of more and more ‘no touch’ policies being written by schools, which I found concerning because of how important this sense is for child development.

This spurred the desire to share a show with audiences that put the playfulness and joy of touch at its heart.

CM: How do you go about creating a show like this for very young children? What did the creative process involve?

RH: It was a really fun way to make a show and a very different process for me. It’s an improvised show, so there is a score that the dancers work from, with different games or movement ideas they can draw on in each section of the show, but they also create spontaneously in the moment so the show is different each time.

Think of it like a musical score – it provides the structure but the chords for a particular section can be played in a variety of ways.

We developed it with children, working in nursery settings every day through rehearsals. This was so important because it gave us time to see what worked and didn’t for different groups of children. The dancers developed a real sensitivity for their audience.

CM: Can you tell us a bit about Second Hand Dance? What prompted you to found this company and what are its aims and ethos?

RH: I started Second Hand Dance in 2013, after creating some shows for unusual spaces, such as libraries, galleries and outdoor spaces. Then in 2014 I got the opportunity to go to see some performances at the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival – I was hooked! It inspired me to want to make work for young audiences too.

As the company grew and opportunities to tour, create and present increased, I began to experience chronic pain and fatigue and in 2017, I began to identify as disabled and Second Hand Dance became a disabled-led company, which informs our work both practically and creatively.

We create beautiful, sensory dance experiences – both live and digital – that are accessible and welcoming to all bodies, working locally, nationally and internationally.

CM: What have been the highlights for you, since the company was created?

RH: Performing in a cattle market in Darlington! Hehe, that was definitely a funny memory – it was so cold that one of the dancer’s heads looked like it was steaming and a child shouted out “he’s on fire!” I think working on ‘We Touch, We Play, We Dance’ is also a big highlight – the pleasure of dancing with children daily is just wonderful.

CM: The pandemic hit the creative industries hard – how did you get through it?

RH: It’s been really tough. I had just returned from maternity leave when lockdown first hit – so I was in a process of re-learning how to work and how I could keep creating with a new caring responsibility. In many ways the pandemic gave me a bit of time to figure this out. As a disabled-led company, it strengthened our ethos as I was supported to work and we also put in place ways of supporting our collaborators and artists.

We also started to make digital productions – we think our Grass Films were one of the first pieces of ‘screen dance’ made specifically for young audiences in this period. I’ve loved working on film – it suits the visual way I work.

And it’s been a real opportunity to look at how we can collaborate with children to create access tools – for example, we have recently been working with a group of children to record audio descriptions for other children to listen to while watching our films.

CM: Can you tell us a bit about you, now? How did you come to be working in this industry, was it what you always wanted to do?

RH: I think I first found out what a choreographer was when I was about thirteen or fourteen and my sister said to me ‘you could do that for a job’ – I remember that really clearly and from that point it was what I wanted to do.

When I was eighteen I went to train at Laban, which I actually found really hard – it knocked my confidence. But I’ve always loved watching dance, I saw as many shows as I could through training and then started to look for and create opportunities to make work.

Alongside the desire to create, I’ve also been grappling with my experience and identity of being disabled. It’s raised lots of questions and changed how the company works across the years, but also created a really renewed focus for the company on removing barriers for audiences and staff.

CM: What’s coming up next for you after this?

RH: The tour of ‘We Touch, We Play, We Dance’ is going to take up our focus until the summer, and we’ve potentially got more tour dates in the UK and internationally in the autumn.

But we’re also investigating creating a digital version of the work – something that families can join in together with at home. We’ve also just released a new digital project, the Getting Dressed films. You can find out about both the tour and the films on our website.

www.thisweekculture.com/article/rosie-heafford-we-touch-we-play-we-dance