Charity work is the part of the business that can make the hard work seem worthwhile.
The reason for this is two fold. Firstly, we get to meet many wonderful and exciting people, but secondly, and more importantly, we get a chance to give back to the community and to others less fortunate than ourselves. As dancers we can sometimes become very self absorbed in an industry where we are constantly being judged on how we look, behave, perform and compete and so we are constantly looking at how to make ourselves better in appearance, performance or competition. In order to somehow balance this self absorption, we need to look at how we can affect or change the world around us for the better by using those long developed skills. As a result Hanna and I are very honoured and excited to become proud supporters of, would you believe it...Saracens Rugby Club. Man Group Ltd, one of Saracens major sponsors, very kindly invited us as guests to some of their Charity Events where we donated private lessons to be auctioned to raise money for their chosen charities. Those charities include: Wooden Spoon - who supports disadvantaged children and young people, and ASPIRE - who work with people with spinal cord injury to create opportunity, choice and independence.
Hanna and I were also invited recently to a pre primary school in Wallingham to give a speech on following your goals and dreams. This again was a very rewarding experience that both Hanna and I truly enjoyed. I spoke about how I had come from being a bush baby in Africa to an International Latin American Dancer and we both spoke about what it took to pursue our dreams of becoming professional dancers.
Recently, we also had the pleasure of working with The Sun newspaper in conjunction with Simply Dancing Partners. We organised and ran a large corporate team building event. Obviously this was not done for charity purposes, but rather, was a great opportunity to get into the hearts and minds of many anti-dancing men and women who thought they never could or would learn to dance. But much to their own surprise they did, and they enjoyed it! It is occasions like these which give Hanna and I such a buzz! For too long dancing has been an unpopular or “uncool” thing to do. However, if we can get a whole team of reporters up and dancing, then there is a glimmer of hope that it will one day come back into fashion throughout our English culture.
Gloria Hunniford and her family at the Lanham Hotel hosted a lovely fundraising event for her late daughter's Cancer Charity; the Caron Keating Foundation. Hanna and I, together with two other SCD couples: Matthew Cutler and Izabella Hannah, and Darren Bennet and Lilia Kopylova, spent a wonderful afternoon during which each of the 3 couples performed a small show for the event and Darren and Lilia donated a private dance lesson to the Auction.