On Tour with MovementWorks

I love MovementWorks; the director (who is really one of my main inspirations), the team and the ethos. It is a truly fantastic company that is a prime case of discovering how great something really is and wanting to share it with the world.

The Director, Alison Golding, choreographer and dancer has now become a dance scientist. And her findings in doing so prove just how beneficial movement is to children. This findings encouraged her to develop a Developmental Dance Programme, in which I have assisted her classes for a couple of years (before heading off to Scotland and then Cambodia).

In fact, what she found was that her Developmental Dance Programme (DDM) was particularly beneficial for children with Autism, and since has expanded the programme into a variety of Special Educational Needs (SEN) Schools. Despite this it is still a mainstream programme and can be delivered inclusively with children with and without SEN.

Dance helps us connect both sides of the brain and helps develop how and how quickly we learn.

Read one of Ali’s guest blogs here and this video helps explain Montessori, a method in which Ali is also trained in and has helped underpin her development. Here is another guest blog Ali’s, titled stepping into NeuroDance!

I feel so honoured to be part of the MovementWorks team. It is full of truly lovely people, who all have similar interests and beliefs. We all wish to share the Movement Mission (getting people aware of just how important movement is in our lives) as far and wide as possible. The team is made up of psychologists, occupational therapists, researchers and dancers; it really is a great mix and we all learn from each other.

MovementWorks toured London, Manchester and Birmingham and part of the Autism Shows and delivered an interactive presentation incorporating a headphone disco. It was rather fun. And it was really fantastic to see the general public’s faces change as soon as we all started to dance.