Sofa Dance Challenge

In February, our amazing Dance teacher, Beth Butler, launched a lockdown challenge to the Leighton Park community, ‘The LP Sofa Dance.’ It was inspired by a youtube piece which included dancers moving, dancing or even just sitting on and around their couches in a stylised way. Recognising the lockdown malaise in this playful manner to create dance around a piece of furniture that has become all too familiar to most of us during the pandemic has helped to celebrate the community’s shared experience of Covid-19 and engage students in a shared initiative.

The LP sofa dances were to be no more than 15 seconds each so that Peter Scoggins, Head of Drama and Dance, could compile them into a short video that could be shared with everyone. An excerpt of the film was premiered in Collect on Friday 30^th April with the full video now available on youtube.

The uptake for the initiative was excellent with participation from many students in a variety of year groups. The project appealed to those keen to return to Beth’s Dance hobby later in the term but also those who would not historically have considered themselves dancers. It was really pleasing to see so many people engage with the sofa dance concept and get involved.

Dom (Year 8) who took part in the Sofa Dance said. “I took part in it because I was finished with my work and I thought ‘What can go wrong?!’ and did it. I thought the final edited piece looked okay and quite surprised! Dance is not really my thing but it can be fun sometimes.”

“I loved editing the video together and seeing everyone at home, in lockdown, using dance and their sofas to reach out and share with others. It brought me a glow of pride in our school and its ability to find ways to stay together.” commented Peter.

Beth reflected “This was the first whole school challenge I had tried at LP and I have been so pleased with the outcome after being inspired by the BBC Arts -Culture in Quarantine initiative. It really proved the strength of our School community. Each time I received a new excerpt it emphasised the power that dance has and allowed me to still connect with students despite not being able to be in the studio with them. We were still able to create movement with meaning inspired by our lockdown surroundings. It proved that dance can still happen even in limited space.”