Kaleidoscope in Motion

We are pleased to have supported Essex-based CoDa Dance Company to take movement and

creative making workshops to disabled people and carers in Basildon.

CoDa is a disability-led dance company. As well as delivering specialist participation

programmes including Dance for Neurology - dance sessions in hospitals and community

settings for people with profound neurodisabilities - CoDa is currently developing a new,

inclusive dance production Our Worlds Collide.

With our support, CoDa delivered three creative workshops, to 75 young carers and people with

early onset dementia, exploring the themes at the core of Our Worlds Collide: the realities of

care, connection and family.

CoDa took the workshops directly to three community groups: Kool Carers, Mundy House Care

Home and Peaceful Place, removing the need for them to travel. In doing so, CoDa was able to

reach local people who would not typically access arts activity, in settings where they already

felt safe and supported.

Using kaleidoscopes as a metaphor for the value of seeing things from different perspectives,

participants were supported to create their own kaleidoscope and explore how it appeared to

distort and enhance their movements.

Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive with young people at Kool Carers

responding with particular depth to the work. Several participants recognised their own

experiences in the themes CoDa’s Artistic Director Nikki Watson has developed from her

personal history of caring for a parent with Multiple Sclerosis. The sessions offered a rare space

to explore those feelings creatively.

Participants at Peaceful Place, the early-onset dementia group, engaged with such energy and

enthusiasm that they have since expressed a wish to book a 12-week programme of regular

activity with CoDa – a direct indication of the value they found in the sessions.