Capital gets in step for biggest dance festival
The biggest celebration of dance in the world will take place in London in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, it was announced today.
The Legacy Trust, an independent charity, has given £2.89million towards Big Dance, set up by former mayor Ken Livingstone in 2006 as a biennial festival.
It means hundreds more events are now being planned across the capital, including a two-hour dance parade from the Southbank Centre to Trafalgar Square by 10,000 people this July.
About three million Londoners are expected to take part in Big Dance over the next three years. Jacqueline Rose, the festival's director, said: "It is to be the ultimate dance experience the world has ever known."
Five organisations - East London Dance, English National Ballet, Greenwich Dance Agency, Sadler's Wells and Siobhan Davies Dance -- have nearly £250,000 each to work with local authorities. There will be a Big Dance bus with a pop-up ballroom, and schools are being invited to dance during Big Dance week, from 3 to 11 July.
Sixty performers showed how to do it today as the plans were unveiled at Spitalfields Market.
Mayor Boris Johnson said: "Big Dance is a terpsichorean feast."
People who want to take part in Big Dance's parade on 10 July can register on the website.
