The big dance company performed for the 5th year running at the bbc tent on the Friday and the Saturday and had an amazing weekend. The tent was packed with one in one out and a great audience gave us lots of support and cheers to get us even more energised!!

On stage was Talia harper and dancers Clare and Charlotte and lucy who performed Telephone, boys and girls and Bad boys, Flava took time out of their busy schedule to join us on their own turf and perform shining , saw and recession along with Tricky and Sweet Flava, who are now busy working on their new routines for the World hip hop championships. The dancers who performed in the philippines gave the crowd a powerful performance of Hold on, that is dedicated to our beautiful Adam who we sadly lost to cancer last year.

In between performances we all enjoyed stuffing our faces with treats and freebies and the kids managed to come back covered head to toe in stickers!!

This year we had a stand promoting our summer school in August where over 400 people entered to win two free places and goodies from the Flava stand.

We had a fantastic day, and thank you to racheal and Chris a.k.a STEVE for all our great shots of the day .#

 

The Big Dance Company Safe back from the Philippines with new international partnerships and Inspired to help Charity.   Hot of the heels of their return from Los Angles at the Dance Excellence awards, where they picked up 5 first places with awards of excellence with performances at Disneyland and Long beach theatre California. The big dance company were selected out of the UK to represent in England at the 2nd Philippine dance exchange held in Roxas City April 14th to 21st, but ended up stranded with 8 dancers out there until the 1st May due to the volcanic eruption.   The Big dance company England team selected by Fiona Richardson included Kyle Richardson 20, Jack Britten 21, Jen Haley 26, Hannah Short 19, Aimee Mitchell 13, Abbie Hoole Jackson 15,and Sophie Walke 17.           The team performed in front of 50,000 people on the opening night at the stadium and spent the week, on outreach tours performing for poverty stricken areas of the Philippines and teaching workshops to over 1,000 people at the dance exchange. The big dance company were voted as the favourite workshop from the workshop attendees out of 32 countries participating a huge honour for the dance company, and were invited to lead the dance at the bay where over a 1000 dancers met at 5am on the beach for united dance which followed by a beach clean up shared by all the dancers from all over the world.   The event was organised by NCCA which aims to bring different cultures together from all over the world through dance including Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, USA, China and Malaysia and it certainly done that. All of our dancers discovered new cultures and many new friends from all over the world, we shared dance styles, teaching methods, new skills and cultures.         We were invited for TV and radio interviews during our time there and held workshops at the world famous Halli Cruz school of Ballet, awarded best Ballet School in the whole of Asia. We performed for one night in beautiful Borocay, with the whitest sand in the world; we performed under the moonlight on a stage on the beach.   We were due to leave the Philippines on the 21st April, and discovered that there had been an eruption; we had no idea how bad it was as we had no television on radio contact. I called my husband Ben and was told our flight was cancelled until the 4th May!! We were very distressed; I was concerned that I had not only children at home that would be without a teacher but young children with me that needed to get home to their families. KLM would not help after spending 5 hours at the office in Manilla and no help from our insurance. We were terrified and had no idea what we were going to do. Then we had a call from Mrs Cruz, the lady who runs the Halli Cruz Ballet School, she assured us not to be afraid and put us up in the hotel for the night while she thought what to do. By the Morning Mrs Cruz had organised an apartment in Manilla for us to stay in together, she covered all expenses for our 10 days in Manilla, she organised a breathtaking schedule for us to make sure that we made the most of our time there. They welcomed us into their dance school like family and made us so happy and welcomed that my dancers did not want to come home!! We spent time working with Charity pcf, helping families on the dumpsite in Manilla, which was very upsetting but opened our eyes to how very lucky we are in the UK, and how we can help by just being there and giving these children happy memories, we spent time having fun with them and teaching them dance and then we performed for them, we plan now to set up a schemes here to help them and plan to visit again next year when we return to the Philippines. We were shocked to see the conditions that these families live in , please check out www.pcf.org           We spent a few days teaching hip hop and lyrical at Mrs Cruz School which was an honour, and we have been invited to go back next year to work with the school again. The school put on a special leaving party for us, presenting us with beautiful banners and birthday cakes for Kyle and Jen who had their birthdays during our extended stay.   We truly fell in love with the Philippines and the warm hospitipal people in it. Mrs Cruz has accepted an invitation to come to England next year and we will perform a big show together in the Hall for Cornwall so we hope that we can repay her in hospitality as she truly saved us from what could have potentially been a disaster for our dancers and myself.   We would like to extend our thanks to the NCCA for inviting us to such an inspirational festival and to all of the beautiful people in the Philippines, to Mrs Cruz who saved us from a potential disaster and to all my amazing students who represented the UK, you are beautiful amazing people and will grow even more from such an inspiring event. A huge thank you to my husband Ben who held the School together whilst I was away and to my amazing teachers who ensured the timetable kept going and the children continued having quality classes. A big thank you to the Lugger hotel, Maria Hocking, the Barn Nightclub, the Playzone St ives, everyone who bought raffle tickets and who donated prizes, you made this trip possible        

wow we have been so busy I have not had time to get any news on here for you of our recents successes!

This year we have had great results at the UDO hip hop championships , the British championships in February at Brean sands, Sweet Flava won the u18 int and Vintage punk runners up in adult n/c, cand Flava came 4th in Adult advanced and lots of great solo and pairs results and at the world hip hiop championships, held at Blackpool Winter gardens in August we saw sweet flava winning u18 int , Tricky 4th u14n/c and Vintage punk 4th ad n/c. Flava then performed in the Micheal Jackson Tribute show the following night in the arena. The welsh championships Tricky won under 14 nc, and sweet flava runners up u18 adv and many dancers taking home 1st place in solos and doubles!

Most recently the south west championships in Plymouth, we had a great day with Sweet flava winning u18 adv and tricky finishing 2nd in u14 int and Sweet dreams came 2nd their frist time in under 10 newcomer (well done) we had loads of wins in solos and doubles and finished of with an early night for a change.

we are now busy training hard for the british championships in feb 2010. more news and results soon.

This weekend after many months of hard work and training 30 dancers from the Fiona Richardson's big dance company travelled 450 miles to Blackpool winter gardens to compete at the UDO world hip hop championships which was held over 3 days countries such as Philippines, chech republic, Portugal, Denmark, France, Ireland, wales, Sweden, Holland, Germany were competing for the world title.
 
The friday evening kicked of with the bboy bgirl world championships with age category under 18 mixed, our girls battled through round 1 to 1 against dancers from all over the world and catran dugdale only 10 years old from heamoor, penzance was the only girl to make the grand final against 6 boys nearly twice her age!! she wowed judges with her head spinning and back spinning and bgirl style, catran has been training with kyle richardson from flava fot the past 6 months to learn the skills and all the hard work has paid off.
 
The Saturday morning solos went really well with many of the rounds having over 80 dancers per round, liberty sincock o neil, clare brighton, Nicola ladner and Ella gilling  got down to the last 9 dancers in her section and bonnie Roberts Georgina Buchanan, amber Thomas, Abbie Jackson, Becki gowers,  and made it down to the last 12 and Charley Buckley 10 made the final and finished 3rd on the podium!!

 
Our doubles dancers did really well Ella Gilling 10 from Penzance and Aimee Mitchell 12 from Plymouth were overall winners of the under 14 world pairs championships after dancing their solo spot in front of a screaming audience, winning prizes and trophies and goodies from united dance organisation. the girls were ecstatic and were screaming so loud i am surprised they were not heard from penzance!!!
 
in the under 16 pairs intermediate section where there were 9 heats , we grabbed two final places both on the podium, rebecca short 15 from Penzance and Abbie Holle jackson 15 from Heamoor finished 3rd place and Chantelle Down 15 from Heamoor and Nicola Ladner 13 from penzance were runners up!
 
In the under 14 newcomer section Billy Buckland and Liberty Sincock o Neil finished 3rd on the podium after competing against 35 other couples.
 
We had team events on the Sunday Sweet Flava who won the British championships this year in under 18 intermediates competed for the title again at the Worlds against 17 other teams, they won a place in the final to dance again to be placed against 7 of the best and finished first place!! the girls were going crazy and ended up in pile on the floor with excitement! they were then approached by sky TV to appear in the new dance competition soon to hit the screens on sky. We were so happy just to make the finals in such a hard competition so to win as you can imagine was breathtaking for us,
 
Tricky, our under 14 new comer team also had tough competition with 16 teams against them, and they got recalled into the grand final and danced their little socks of with dancers ages ranging between 10 and 12 they were one of the youngest groups of dancers in their section and they finished 4th place!!
 
Vintage punk also made the final, this was the first time they had competed together and had a really tough category, they danced amazing and really done their best and finished 4th place. The girls aged between 16 and 18 are now preparing for the welsh championships in October!
  
Sunday afternoon they held the quads competition where choreographers are given set music and all quads show off their choreography on the floor at the same time in groups of 4, in the under 18 section there was 9 heats and Aimee Mitchell, Plymouth, Ella Gilling, Abbie hoole jackson and Rebbecca Short all from Penzance finished 4th place and in the over 18 section Charlotte Gilling, Catherine Wilcock, Annice Winney and Yasmin Cook also finished 4th.
To finish off our amazing weekend we all watched the Micheal Jackson tribute show at the Blackpool opera house where Flava were performing alongside Diversity , George Sampson and Aiden, they made us very proud performing their new routine to two sold out shows!! the guys are now busy this week preparing for their performance at the body shop world conference in London this weekend.
 
Breaking news that Next year a new blockbuster movie will be relased to our cinemas called 'street dance' the movie , by vertigo films. staring bgt winners diversity and George Sampson and Sweet flava have landed a part in an audition scene to be filmed next week in London!! we are so excited and proud that these Young people are having such a magical experience that they can keep forever! the movie will be released in 2010 so look out for familiar faces!! we are in need of a loan of a mini bus to get the girls there from 7th to 8th and we have a licenced driver so if anyone can help please let Fiona know on 0777 333 42 38 

 
registration for new dancers for the the winter term is now available on line on www.thebigdancecompany.com or by calling 01736 333 444
and tickets for their show at the hall for Cornwall , featuring all of the crews above is on Monday 2nd December tickets can be booked now from the hall for Cornwall.

 

 

 Whilst we were in LA at dance excellence we were invited with two other directors from other Countries, to teach out in the Philippines, which was a great honor. It was to be the first International dance workshop and festival in the Philippines with connectivity through dance run by the NCCA, national commission for the culture and the arts.

We only had a week to get organised! and i was in LA for another week,  argh! We needed to take a show and some workshops, so Charlie Lodey, Charlotte Gilling, Clare Brighton and I, had 3 hours to create a show for them by the time we all got back to the UK from Los Angeles. We decided that we would dance the piece that I choreographed for the body shop, as it was relevant to what we were going over for, which was world peace and bringing together different cultures through dance. We dashed around getting jabs, changing money and preparing another case for a 20 hour trip to the Philippines! We left on the Thursday night to arrive in Manilla on the Friday, exhausted but so excited!! we booked our travel through Steve Crook our Travel Councilor, who ensured we had a great Flight with Etihad airlines and nice hotel to stay in until we were met my our LO's in Manilla.

The first day our amazing LO Makkie, took us for lunch and showed us the area. We experienced our first lunch served on banana leaves!  we were lucky enough to catch the street dance festival in Manilla which celebrated national dance day, it was breathtaking, and a real great welcome to the philippines. It was so funny how everyone wanted to take our picture, as we seemed to be the only western people there.   Makki then took us to Miss Shirley's Ballet school in Manilla where we would teach our first workshop. It was so much fun and working with top class ballerinas urged me to give them a taste of some freestyle and they were amazing at it!!!! Then we taught some hip hop, and had them back spinning by the end of it!  It was lovely to see the dancers again that we met in Los Angeles!

The next day we headed to the airport to fly to Dumaguete where the festival would be taking place, we were greeted at the airport by beautiful dancers and locals cheering and waving which was lovely. Our hotel was by the sea and we were so looked after by our LO's Maxine and Makki. It was a huge Culture shock for us at first as none of us had travelled to such areas without tourism, but we very quickly fell in love with the place.

Over the next few days we took part in workshops by the other countries and learnt about different cultures and learnt some new languages. We had lunch daily with new friends from all over the world trying new dishes and drinks. We were sent out on outreach performances with the other dance groups from other countries where we performed to areas in the Philippines where they do not had access to dance or the arts, and i have to say they were my most special moments of performing in my life! They appreciated every movement and to see the smiles on the faces of the children during our performance was breathtaking!! And to be able to dance with people from other countries was incredible.

On the Wednesday we taught a workshop to over 400 people and it was so much fun, we had them crumping, freestyling, and whooping! We loved every second, and it was great to spend time chatting to the locals to learn how much they appreciated us coming. The Philippines is such a beautiful country and all the people that we met were very warm, thoughtful and sooo HAPPY!!

The festival was the first exchange in the Philippines and it was a huge success, the organisation and attention to detail was incredible. The locals were very welcoming and anyone that we met could not do enough for us to make our stay comfortable. We struggled alot with the heat and was sad to see the way that some people have to survive, but never once did we hear anyone complaining! 

On the Friday we performed at a stadium which felt like thousands, where we all performed together and Clare represented the Uk by dancing the fan dance where each country dances with it and it is passed around by way of unity. It was a very proud moment.

We love the Philippines and all the beautiful people we met there, and we have been invited back next year, so we are going to be busy preparing a special show for them. Also while we were there we were invited to teach in Malaysia with our new friends in August this year, which we are very excited about, so watch this space for further details.

We met some amazing new friends that i am sure we will have for life and to sum up our experience. LIVING THE DREAM! thank you Shirley and all your beautiful dancers, Maxine, Dennis, Makki, powerdance, and all the groups who made this an experience of a lifetime and to my beautiful students who represented our school in the most amazing way! Counting the days till next year x

more photos on our facebook x