DIGITAL ENGAGEMENT AND DISABILITY; REACHING FURTHER - A PRESENTATION

Rosie Heafford is a disabled choreographer and Artistic Director of Second Hand Dance. Established in 2013, Second Hand Dance have toured the globe – from the UK to Europe, China, Canada, and the USA. They 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 and Grass, a show for ages 2 – 7 that has performed over 20 times to nearly 15,000 audiences since 2015. Since 2020 Second Hand Dance have developed digital dance films for young audiences with access at their heart, experimenting with creating access tools such as audio description for children by children. Collaboration with audiences is vital in the creation and performance of her work. With every project she makes, she engages with children and adults throughout the research. Dancing together, talking together, observing together, and allowing this to inform her creative decisions. Second Hand Dance believe that audiences of all ages, including babies, deserve a world where dance, empathy and play are central to our lives and as vital and fluent as language.