Shaun Parker & Co Offers Free Virtual Dance Classes
Getting Young People Moving with Electro-Pop!
The confines of working from home and home-schooling hasn’t stopped Sydney dance organisation Shaun Parker & Company from innovating or connecting with young people to teach them to dance!
Launching a brand new virtual dance workshop program Electro-Pop with support from the City of Sydney, the new online direction for the company is also providing its artists with continued employment through these turbulent times.
Inspired by one of Artistic Director Shaun Parker’s all-time favourite pieces of choreography, the fun and energising Electro-Pop workshops will provide a new kind of mid-morning or lunch break activity to keep young people moving. Giving participants a light-hearted activity to keep their bodies active, the workshops teach the secrets of some of the coolest retro dance-floor moves for people spending much time at home.
Commencing on Monday 27 April, the daily Electro-Pop Online workshops will see hip hop artist Libby Montilla provide one-hour dance lessons via live video, for anyone and everyone to join in. These FREE dance workshops are ideal for young people between the ages of 12 and 24 years old. However, it’s a fun and easy way to get the whole family dancing.
Libby will provide instructions, demonstrate each move and guide participants through each section of Electro-Pop, giving them a full-body workout and some fun new moves to try when they’re next on the dance floor. There will also be a Q&A at the end of each workshop so that Libby can answer any questions, whether that’s about the dance moves or about his career as a professional dancer.
In addition to learning the super cool moves during the online dance workshops, Shaun Parker & Company will invite participants to add their own dance-flare by integrating their own moves. Each participant will develop their very own 8-count dance moves that will be integrated into a final Electro-Pop Online performance at the end of the program.
Workshops will take place three times a day, Monday to Friday and participants can join one each day to learn a new dance sequence. By the end of the program, participants will have learnt a variety of moves and with the addition of their very own sequence, will perform the Electro-Pop dance all together on Friday 22 May, which will be recorded by Shaun Parker & Company via Zoom.
Electro-Pop first caught the publics’ imagination when it was performed in association with SPILL by Shaun Parker & Company, which was commissioned for the Cultural Olympiad in the lead up to the 2012 London Olympic Games and featured on the BBC. It was also performed as part of the London Festival in 2012, across 157 playgrounds around the UK and then around the world, Electro-Pop incorporates simple, funky dance moves to entertain its audience and participants.
