Yr Ardd

11 minutes ago
2 min read

Yr Ardd was a six-week programme of site-responsive community dance at Global Gardens in Cardiff, funded through the Arts Council of Wales Creative Communities programme. Forty participants aged 2–75 took part across four mixed-age workshops and two sessions delivered in collaboration with a local nursery. Each session combined movement, creative making, reflection and shared food made with produce from the garden.

The project went very well overall, particularly in its ability to bring together people of different ages, experiences and relationships to dance. Rather than asking participants to learn a particular movement vocabulary, I used the garden itself as a source of creative material. Participants followed their attention through the site, responding to shapes, textures, rhythms and encounters, and developed and shared movement through mirroring, peer-teaching and improvisation. Participants could dance standing, sitting or lying down, and could also contribute through drawing, writing and clay, creating an inclusive environment in which people could participate through their own bodies and capacities.

The project also created opportunities to connect dance with Welsh language, culture and heritage. All sessions incorporated Welsh language, while the children’s workshops were delivered through the medium of Welsh. This created opportunities for participants to encounter and use Welsh in a creative, embodied context, supporting a sense of cultural connection and belonging.

One of the most significant outcomes was the impact on participants’ wellbeing and sense of connection, both to each other and to the garden. The combination of movement, outdoor activity, creative play and shared reflection created opportunities to slow down, be curious and experience the environment differently. Participants described developing “a richer, more sensitive connection to what we see around us”, while also valuing opportunities to “encourage health and wellbeing”. Participants reported increased feelings of connection and community, and many returned for multiple sessions. There was strong appetite across participants for the project to continue.

The project also generated valuable opportunities for ecological and intercultural learning. Participants developed greater awareness of the garden and its plants, materials, weather and other forms of life through embodied exploration. At the final community celebration, participants shared their co-created dances and creative work alongside a Persian meal cooked by Sahar Saki using produce grown in the garden. This created an opportunity for intercultural appreciation and exchange around food, growing and cooking cultures, connecting the creative project to the wider community of the garden.

The project taught me that these benefits cannot be rushed. Many participants were meeting for the first time and had very different experiences of dance, movement and outdoor activity. I found that creating the conditions for trust and connection was as important as the activities themselves. In future, I would build more time into the early stages for relationship-building and participant-led exploration, allowing the social, wellbeing and artistic benefits to develop more organically.

The project has a strong legacy. A participant-created zine is held in the garden classroom, providing an ongoing record of the project. More importantly, Yr Ardd has strengthened my commitment to site-responsive, intergenerational and participatory dance and demonstrated clear community appetite for this work to continue.