AGBRIGG TOGETHER
A series of online family activities and continuation of the Agbrigg women's dancing group.
This project was intended to build on the work of the Culture Cures project ‘Agbrigg Together’, which had been unfortunately cut short because of the national lockdown. CoActive Arts responded by turning to delivering 5 Facebook Live sessions.
Facebook was chosen because it was something the families were already familiar with and had engaged with, and the videos remain available on the page. As the project continued CoActive Arts adapted to ensure that families could engage if internet access was limited and distributed a DVD with the online content created on along with the film of their previous project Ocean Adventure, and a gallery of photos from the project on a memory stick. Each child received a personal certificate recognising and celebrating their involvement in the project.
The second part of this project was focused around women. Again, this was a development on the ‘Agbrigg Together’ project. Prior to lockdown CoActive had been working to form a group of women who lived in Wakefield but reflected the rich and diverse cultural heritage of the residents - ‘Women Together’. This was focused around eating, dancing and sharing stories together. During the continuation of the project in lockdown the group evolved and moved onto WhatsApp, a medium all participants were familiar with, as well as 15 Zoom Belly dancing classes, with 9 being uploaded to YouTube so people can access them again.
Some of the feedback from participants:
"Love this class. Great teacher and encourager. Positive energy and love the music."
"Loved all the positivity and moves. Can't wait to do in real life."
"I've started to feel more 'in' my own body rather than just see it as a moving vessel."
This project has helped CoActive reflect on their delivery within communities, and provided a real insight in to people’s lives locally, what they need and where the pressures and struggles are.
