Dance Days festival set to hit the streets and parks of Swansea

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Taliesin Arts Centre in Swansea is gearing up to bring a festival of dance performance back to the streets and parks of the city across two weekends.

Taliesin’s Dance Days is a free world-class dance festival which brings together dancers from across the UK and beyond, performing alongside local dance groups.

Organisers say that the variety of performances, brought together at different locations around Swansea on 25-26 June & 9-10 July is suitable for all ages and audiences and is entirely free.

Now in its 17th year, the festival has traditionally taken place over one weekend staged around the city’s Castle Square and the Swansea Waterfront Museum and marina area.

New audiences

During the Covid pandemic, the festival quickly adapted and went online for 2020 offering individual events through the summer, and then in 2021 it moved to two different Swansea parks enabling new audiences to engage with the festival.

This year, combining the successes of venturing into the parks with the traditional event, Dance Days will take place in Cwmdonkin Park, as well as in and around Swansea marina, and Waterfront Museum.

Showcasing traditional and contemporary, hip hop and acrobatic dance styles, the full programme will take place across the two venues over two different weekends, and for the third year the Taliesin is extending its programme to the world wide web, presenting an online version of the programme.

Swansea was one of the first UK cities to join this worldwide dance network, which includes Rio de Janeiro, Barcelona, Geneva, London and Manchester, and the free festival is now a popular and regular fixture on the Swansea summer calendar.

Dazzling

Performances include Vertical Dance Kate Lawrence, in a cheeky dance which sees squirrels scurrying up and down a tree.

Just Us Dance Theatre return with their powerful work, Born to Protest, created by Hip hop dance theatre artist Joseph Toonga.

Local performers the folkloric belly dance group, The Lotus Sisters, will be inviting audiences to join in the dance, and the programme also features dancers from the Chinese in Wales Association as well as Isaac-Clarke Dance Academy’s Silver Swans.

Srishti – Nina Rajarani Dance Creations Jham! brings together traditional and modern dance in an explosive performance, and there is comedy from Kitsch & Sync Collective’s interactive new performance, Ceri-Ann Arian as well as an old favourite, Topiary Trauma.

Circus Eruption will be on the festival site offering workshops in juggling, diablo, and more, for all ages.

Richard Chappell Dance is collaborating with Volcano, County Youth Dance Company and Cando Hub, in a coastal themed dance, Silence Between Waves.

Exhilarating

Nia Mills, Dance Days Organiser at Taliesin Arts Centre said: “Taliesin Arts Centre has been producing this free outdoor dance festival since 2006. Every summer we take dance out of the theatre and onto the streets of Swansea for a two-day free festival.

“The programme always has a huge variety of dance, to please all ages. Having been restricted to smaller audiences last year, we ventured into parks around Swansea. We are thrilled to be able to do that again, this year, in Cwmdonkin park, as well as returning to a usual spot, around Swansea marina.

“This year’s Dance Days will showcase dance performances which are exhilarating, funny, athletic and accessible with performance companies from across the UK and beyond, as well as Swansea’s very own local talent.”

Full information, booking as well as a downloadable leaflet featuring a schedule are available online here or by contacting Taliesin Arts Centre on 01792 60 20 60.

Or follow events on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram by following #dancedays22