Tea Dances

Tea Dances

Xpress-Yourself Dance CIC deliver non-traditional tea dances across the West Midlands. Our tea dances are non-traditional in that participants are not required to dance with partner to dance the traditional social dances.  Our tea dances are extension of our Keep Dancing classes that are suitable for older adults that run across Solihull, Birmingham and Walsall in the West Midlands. Find out more about our Keep Dancing dance classes here

Our work with Building Community Together, Birmingham has really developed our tea dances in the last couple of years and ensured that our work is accessible and community focused. During lockdown we worked with Building Community Together to host virtual tea dances which gave participants an event to look forward to which they could participate in safely at home. After the pandemic tea dances have returned to running in halls and it has been a true delight to hear the laughter and see the smiles on participants faces as they enjoy having a dance in a friendly atmosphere.

Different styles of dance are taught, including, jazz, ballet, bhangra, line dance, ballroom and Latin just to name a few. All dances are taught step by step and are choregraphed so that people can dance on their own. There is always lots of fun and laughter and the emphasis is always enjoying the chance to dance and not taking yourself seriously, unless of course you want to feel as though you are on Strictly Come Dancing. This means that our tea dances are perfect for people who may have danced before or are a complete beginner.

As we get older opportunities to dance socially become limited to weddings and birthday parties, but we know that there is something quite special about having a dance with other people and the benefits for health and wellbeing can be phenomenal. Tea dances can bring together people from local communities and help for people to feel a sense of belonging in their community and build new friendships. A tea dance is so much more than just an afternoon of dancing.  We know that there is something quite special about having a dance with other people and the benefits for health and wellbeing are phenomenal.

In recent tea dances some participants have not been able to participant in a standing capacity, but it is important to us that everyone feels part of the event and receives the opportunity to dance. In which case we bring the dance to the participant where they can join in in a seated capacity. We strongly believe that everyone is a dancer and that it is our responsibility as a dance company to ensure that dance is made accessible.

It was a wonderful afternoon with a lovely afternoon tea, we enjoyed the dancing, the laughs. Thank you all so much, looking forward to seeing you all again soon.

Susan.

Tea dances can be themed and previous themes have included 1950’s,1960’s, 1970’s, an afternoon at the movies and around the world. Of course, we also have a Christmas themed tea dance, and our Christmas Merengue is a very popular dance.  See below for a snippet of our 1950’s Tea Dance delivered for Building Community Together at Arthur Moor Hall, Acocks Green. The event was filmed by Kelvin-Jake Photography.

‘Lovely to see Communities coming together yummy food FAB dance. Choreography FUN AFTERNOON’

Shirley

Xpress-Yourself Dance CIC can facilitate the dancing at your next tea dance event with your theme of your choice.  Get in touch for more information here

Find out more about Xpress-Yourself Dance CIC here