Dancing for the asking with fantastic 4Motion
All areas: Dance and movement company uses grants for Time for Tea project
A Louis Baylis Trust grant is helping to keep people singing and dancing throughout the pandemic.
Windsor-based 4Motion is a community interest company which delivers classes, workshops and events to aid people’s physical and mental health.
Formed in 2006, it specialises in delivering dance and yoga classes, projects and training in primary, secondary and special education schools and community settings.
And thanks to a £1,000 grant from the Louis Baylis Trust, 4Motion has been able to carry on its work.
Following the first lockdown, it set up an online community and got familiar with Zoom.
“We had to think very quickly on our feet,” said Elaine Macey, co-director at 4Motion.
“Our ethos was to keep people moving and connected.”
Throughout the pandemic, 4Motion has engaged more than 4,500 people online through its classes and workshops, after it was forced to shut its Windsor studio at the height of the crisis.
Based in the Vansittart Estate, the studio is now back up and running following the end of the second lockdown earlier this month.
“What the funding has enabled us to do is ensure 4Motion is alive and thriving,” Elaine added.
Louis Baylis cash – with the help of other funders – has enabled the company to set up a number of projects to support different areas of the community.
‘Time for Tea’ is a project designed for care homes where chair yoga is offered for residents, while there is also the opportunity for those in care to have a virtual chat over a cup of tea.
And for young people, ‘Check in and Chats’ offers them a Zumba or yoga class while being able to have an informal talk.
Both aim to combat isolation and stress, additionally caused by the pandemic.
The 4Motion team have also set up a festive event, ‘The 4Motion Dancing Advent', in which people from different businesses and schools learn a dance for 12 days before performing it over Zoom with thousands of others.
Visit www.4motioncic.com for more information.