Inverkeithing dancers had world at their feet

Dance school wins titles, plaudits and friends over a busy summer

AN INVERKEITHING dance school have danced their way to the top at the Scottish and the World championships.

New Movement Dance Company have been competing across Europe this summer, with girls from the team taking part in the Scottish Championships, the Dance World Cup in San Sebastian and World Lyrical Dance Competition in Dublin, as well as performing at the British Grand Pix at Silverstone.

It’s been a summer to remember for the dance company, returning with multiple wins and even a couple of scholarships.

Stacey Anderson runs New Movement alongside her fellow dance teacher, Susan Thomson, and told the Press: “Our kids, they’re travelling the world doing something that they absolutely adore, we know where they are every night when they’re coming in from school and they’re desperate to go to training. They’re working like athletes, they’re working hard and training hard.

“They’re working for what they’re trying to achieve and what they are achieving, and they’re just wee, is just so amazing. We actually had four of our senior girls got picked out at the World Championships by one of the judges for a scholarship at a London dance college.

“They are getting these opportunities out of what they’re putting in. They’ve had absolutely loads going on for the last wee while and they’ve just done so well.”

At the Dance World Cup, every group dance they performed placed in the top 10 and had dancers placing fifth and 14th worldwide out of thousands of dancers, while at the Scottish Championships, they took home 18 titles and had three winning squads.

At the World Championships, they bagged 10 new titles and had 14 lyrical squad winners and to top it all, four girls received unconditional places at the Millennium Performing Arts College in London.

Stacey continued: “We just train out of a council community centre, it’s not like the kids have 24/7 facilities to train in so to have done as well as they have done, the training and being such a smaller competitive school, they’ve done super-well.

“It’s been really difficult for everybody since COVID, to try and get the kids back, motivated and training again. We had to do so much fundraising and everything to try and get them where we needed to take them. When we went to the Dance World Cup, it was thousands of pounds per kid to even get there.”

As a group, the parents, kids and their teachers fundraised to make sure they weren’t leaving anyone behind. The girls aren’t just a team, they’re a family and Stacey believes that is the key to their success.

She said: “It’s nice because we only have a competitive team of about 30 and it’s just one of those things where we wouldn’t go with just one or two, although we did to San Sebastian because that was who qualified, but for the Worlds and the Scottish Championship, the whole school goes. If everybody can’t go then we aren’t going.

“It is really a big family and I feel like that has a lot to do with the success of all the kids. Every single child, from the youngest to the oldest, has that support network behind them and it genuinely makes such a difference.”

The whole team stay and support each other throughout the competitions, to make sure that everyone has someone there cheering them on. The girls won numerous titles and awards at the competitions but the one that Stacey is most proud of is the 2022 Team Spirit Award at the World Lyrical Dance competition.

“We actually won a trophy for team spirit, for supporting the kids and that was the most special thing we won that full weekend. It reinforced everything that we have tried to instil in the kids, that it’s not just about winning, it’s about taking part and being a team,” she said.

“When you’ve got kids that are all dancing against each other and their pals are beating them but they’re running up to cuddle them in the middle of the stage, that’s what’s important, these friendships that the kids have.”