Arts Care

Gofal Celf

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Partners:
Gelliswick Primary School and The Torch Theatre

Ballet Cymru led a residency at Gelliswick Primary School, Milfod Haven in June 2019. Arts Care Gofal Celf dance practitioners joined Ballet Cymru Education team and worked with 122 children, 60 boys and 62 girls, of which 103 had never participated in a ballet class before.

Through discussions with Ballet Cymru and Arts Care Gofal Celf, Milford Haven was identified as an area with little dance activity and the Duets programme would very much support the development of quality dance provision and fill the gap in Arts Care Gofal Celf programme.

‘ACGC is looking forward to working with Ballet Cymru and other partner organisations on the Duets Programme. We believe it will be beneficial in raising the profile of ACGC as a provider of high quality, accessible dance opportunities whilst enabling us to work in a school with a high level of socio-economic problems.

The programme will allow us to work with participants who do not access our current dance projects and will enable us to work with a group of children over a prolonged period of time introducing elements of ballet that may not ordinarily be used. Being part of the national programme will give us the opportunity to share experiences and expertise with peer organisations and to explore areas of best practice in community dance. This can only benefit the knowledge and confidence of our dance artists.

As a result of the project we would like to see an increase in the number of young people in West Wales participating in our community dance programmes and a greater interest from local schools in providing more dance opportunities for pupils.’

Chris Ryan, Director ACGC

Gelliswick Primary School, Milford Haven

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Gelliswick Primary School is based in a deprived area, surrounded by housing estates which are a mixture of social housing, housing associations and private homes. The school is the highest employer in the area. 559 children attend Gelliswick and 25% receive free school meals.

In terms of the criteria for Duets, Gelliswick fits perfectly and with the Torch Theatre close to the school it enables Ballet Cymru, Arts Care Gofal Celf and Gelliswick Primary to build on a relationship with the Theatre not only when Ballet Cymru are touring there, but on-going throughout the life of the Duets programme and into the future.

Ballet Cymru will be returning to Gelliwick Primary School in March to lead a second residency and we are very excited to be planning the Scholarship Programme there from September 2020.

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Case Study

Second Residency at Gelliswick Primary School
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Ballet Cymru returned to Gelliswick Primary School in March 2020. We worked with all of year 3 & 4 and also the nurture class. The school was so welcoming and it was lovely to see the children again.

Each group created a dance piece based on the story of Giselle and developed their technical and creative skills. We were joined by Emily and Freya, dance practitioners with Arts Care Gofal Celf. Everyone is very excited to return to the school to begin the Duets training and selection process for the Scholarship Programme to begin.

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