.png)
Hat Fair is well known among Winchester residents as a joyous celebration of the arts that runs over 3 days. Hat Fair is a family-friendly festival of Street Performance and Outdoor Arts organised by Play to the Crowd. The festival takes place every year during the first weekend of July in the historic city of Winchester. This year we decided to use this platform to showcase our Liberate Dance Company to the people of Winchester and to challenge people's perceptions around wheelchair users and what wheelchair dance looks like. Our group performed on the Friday (2nd July), this was Liberate's first time performing on a stage at a big event, and they all said that they had an amazing time!
Liberate Dance performed an abstract contemporary dance to the alternative song "The Reckoning" by UNSECRET and Matthew Perryman Jones. The dance, choreographed by Liberate dance teacher, Amanda, juxtaposed sharpness with fluidity, accenting the music and incorporating themes of 'making our voices heard'. The dancers all said that they really enjoyed learning the choreography and performing it! The choreography gave individual dancers their own parts and once pulled together, the overall effect was impactful.
' I thoroughly enjoyed every moment of the process from rehearsal right up to the second we stepped off stage.' Georgia- Liberate Dancer
.After weeks of rehearsal in the studio, Liberate Dance appeared on stage to perform at 7.25pm with an audience of around 50 people. There were lots of nerves on stage but once the performance got underway, the dancers’ nerves soon disappeared and they smashed it! As the performance ended, the audience erupted into applause and many shouts of praise could be heard among the spectators. The hard work and effort were certainly worth it and the dancers’ teamwork really shone through.
'It was such an exhilarating experience. As a Winchester resident, I’ve been attending the Hat Fair for many years, so actually performing there felt like a dream come true. I can’t thank Liberate enough for giving me the opportunity. We all did so well as a team. Liberate is fantastic at being inclusive. Kerry- Liberate Dancer
The dancers did an absolutely incredible job, they worked so hard and we are super proud of all of them!
Keep your eyes peeled for a video of their performance coming soon...
