Papers of Youth Dance England

Papers relating to Youth Dance England, including Board minutes, financial accounts, grants and fundraising, correspondence, press coverage, project resources, audio-visual recordings of projects including Youth Dance Festival, Young Creatives and U.Dance England, publications, publicity material including flyers, brochures and certificates, and branded items including bags, a water bottle, badges and t-shirts. Also some material from the National Youth Dance Trust.

Youth Dance England was founded in 2004 with the aim of supporting and promoting opportunities for young people in dance. The initiative to found the agency came from Arts Council England and the Department for Education and Skills Music and Dance scheme. Linda Jasper successfully tendered to lead the organisation and became Director.

YDE aimed to advocate the benefits of dance to young people, support practitioners with information and training, and initiate high profile national projects. They also continued the work of the National Youth Dance Trust, which had been founded in 1983 and ran the National Youth Dance Company. Programmes included Young Creatives for emerging choreographers and U.Dance, a national festival of performance, workshops and masterclasses.

In April 2016 YDE was merged with Association of Dance of the African Diaspora, Dance UK and the National Dance Teachers Association to form One Dance UK, a new national dance organisation aiming to provide an improved, joined-up service supporting everyone who works in dance.

Open and available for research.

Deposited by Linda Jasper, former Director of YDE, in April 2017.

Photocopying, scanning and photography may be permitted for research purposes only, within copyright regulations and dependent on the physical condition of the item.

DMU Special Collections also hold the papers of People Dancing, formerly the Foundation for Community Dance. See reference D/036 .