About Groundwork

Groundwork is an artist led collective, formed in 2015 by a group of independent dance
artists in Wales, hungry for training and creative input, and responding to a lack of provision.
Groundwork continues to support the dance community and is now recognised as a crucial
part of Wales’ fragile dance infrastructure.

In our last program the team consisted of Deborah Light, Lara Ward and Zosia Jo, operating as a non-hierarchical team and making decisions collectively, while each taking responsibility for particular aspects of our provision and tasks related to delivering the program. We work in creative partnership with organisations including Chapter, NDCWales, Rubicon, USW, Cardiff Dance Festival and Dawns i Bawb nurturing a network of support for dance. We aim to continually respond to the needs of the community we support and are part of.

Deborah Light will step down from the team (statement here) as the new team members come into place in August shifting to a team of four. This team is paid half a day a week each to curate, deliver, manage and market this program. We also have 9 days across the team for business development over the next 6 months – we will be using this to look at our operations and governance as they have not kept pace with developments in our program and are not sustainable into the future.

Now, with our Stabilisation grant in place, we are launching a program that we hope will connect the dance community in Wales and keep us moving in a way that is resilient and responsive to the cultural, social and economic changes that are happening around us. We recognise that we haven’t done enough quickly enough with regard to our diversity, bi-lingualism and access, we are making steps to address this. We are in the process of recruiting two new team members to help us curate and deliver this program. We are committed to one of these being a Welsh speaker and one being a person of colour, of Asian descent or dual heritage.

Through this program we: plan to engage and hope to support a more diverse range of dance artists, communicate and deliver elements of the program bi-lingually, increase our support for and connection with artists across Wales and make what we offer more accessible.

Our Mission

Groundwork’s mission is to support, nourish and connect independent dance artists across
Wales. Our vision is to enable a community of diverse dancers, movers and makers to fulfil
their artistic potential. We offer development opportunities and artistic encounters, including
classes, workshops, discussion events, residencies, mentoring and sharing of practice.

Groundwork Pro would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to those that supported the programme across the years. Arts Council of Wales, Creu Cymru, Coreo Cymru, Chapter, Proper Design, Rubicon, National Dance Company of Wales, Cardiff Met, National Theatre Wales, University South Wales Cardiff Dance Festival & Ty Cerdd.