Art is… a dance party showcase

Preparations are in full swing for dance to play an integral role in this year’s Art is… festival.

On June 1 and 2, the start of the annual festival, Horsham Town Hall will provide the setting for a major dance showcase involving a collaboration of dancers and performers from across the region and beyond.

Promoted as ‘part theatre performance, part get up and dance’, The Inaugural Annual Dance Affair is produced by a group called Everybody NOW and has toured across Australia.

Each show is designed to be unique to the place, people, history and dance culture of the host community.

The Horsham Art is… presentation will be a dance celebration created with the region’s dancing communities.

Director Ian Pidd travelled from Melbourne to meet dancers and dance groups in Horsham late last year.

Pidd, Kate Mcdonald and Bec Reid created the concept and have developed the show within several communities.

Inspired by the rise and fall, and rise again, of the social dance scene, The Inaugural Annual Dance Affair celebrates that ‘the dance circuit is alive and thriving, ready to kick up the dust and get those floorboards jumping’.

From the two-step to the tango, to rock ’n’ roll, a waltz or funky free-styling grooves, organisers say The Inaugural Annual Dance Affair will go-go its way through a celebration of decades of dance, bringing to life heart-warming real stories.

Pidd said during his visit to Horsham that the show would be similar to a dance night that would have happened deep into the 1960s or early 1970s, ‘where everyone comes together to dance a whole variety of dances and to see people dancing’.

The show is designed to embrace diversity and is for people of all ages.

People can email artis@artiswimmera.com.au for more information.

Horsham’s Art is… festival is from June 1 to 10 and this year’s theme is Art is… A Footprint – Making your Mark.