What a positive, inspirational evening from London’s Step Live 2024 young dancers! An annual celebration—and celebration is the word—of dance and inclusivity. I leave with a smile on my face and joy in my heart: the therapeutic value of dance and music, which pervades the stage and the auditorium (parents, supporters, and local mayors). The benefit and value of the arts!
Two performances, matinée and evening, display twenty-four schools divided into twelve between the two sessions. I see the evening one. All of the students involved are part of Step into Dance, a Royal Academy of Dance programme, which provides regular dance classes within secondary schools and youth groups across London and Essex, in partnership with the Jack Petchey Foundation, set up “to inspire and celebrate young people”.
Now if you don’t know about the late Sir Jack (1925–2024), you should. A self-made man, his motto was, “if you think you can, you can”. “Since 1999, the Foundation has invested over £170 million in programmes and partnerships that have directly benefitted almost 1.2m young people aged 11–25 across London and Essex.”
The benefit is immediately visible in the young dancers’ confidence, their careful consideration of musical choices, the positive message in their presentations. It comes from the heart—the red backcloth has a refracted heart light projection dazzling in its multifaceted diamond rays. It restores one’s faith in human nature in a divided and divisive world. It’s “about relaxing creative energy”.
The first number is called Sunshine from eight members of Heron Academy, a school for young people with profound and multiple learning difficulties. It makes me think of the StopGap Dance Company. This is followed by a solo piece, Journey of Thoughts, from Ella (loose, supple, with lovely arms) from Lady Margaret School (I think), who is looking to make dance her career.
Acland Burghley School fills the stage with fourteen hip-hopping dancers in Stages of Grief. The excellent lead boy would fit in beautifully with Boy Blue’s school workshops. How Do I Make You Love Me is Charles Darwin School’s on the beat number from six girls. Whilst a twenty, or so, strong cohort from Parliament Hill School’s I Want To Start A Revolution vogue their way in dressy style. And City & Islington College’s bucket-hatted crew, a dozen I think, take on hip-hop and commercial dance.
After the interval, we get a video from Vale School, another establishment for children with special needs. What is remarkable are the coordination skills required to keep in step with each other, and how the body reacts to beat, music a profound solace and personal space.
More hip-hop comes from SYNC (Step Youth Dance Company) with Punch Your Weight—some twenty youngsters fill the stage. Synchronicity and some daring flips excite the cheering audience. SYNC also closes the evening on a high with Come Alive. That we do. Do I see some fouettés, too? Here’s that “if you think you can, you can” mindset.
Before that final number come four girls from Hayes School with Feeling Good (think Nina Simone); Harris Academy Tottenham with timing perfect Finesse and being yourself; Hornsey School for Girls in a gentle contemporary dance number, Far From Home, about being lost in a crowd of faceless people. All deeply thoughtful.
They are faceless no more: they have made their nearest and dearest very proud. Accolades to them all, brave performers and backstage people. There’s a free motivating booklet, Notes from Sir Jack Petchey, which ought to be in every school and youth club. His memory lives on.
“When I dance, I feel complete,” says a participant. If only more schools had this support, there’d be more Billy Elliot success stories.