DANC – The ‘Disabled Artists Networking Community’ is a monthly networking event for established/professional artists and performers (of any art form) that have a disability.
Cherylee Houston (Izzy Armstrong from Coronation Street)
DANC was created by actors with disabilities. They have been part of almost every “disabled actor scheme” going and two of its prominent founders are Cherylee Houston and Melissa Johns.
Melissa Johns who played Imogen Pascoe in Coronation Street
One evening the creators got together to discuss why various schemes were not working and that’s when they decided to create DANC. They were aware that there own area of expertise mainly lay with Television & Theatre but they wanted DANC to be about artists of ALL art forms so that together they could unlock all areas across the arts.
One of the things that DANC wants to do is source industry guests from ALL art forms so that everyone benefits. And they want to make sure that DANC meetings always remain solution focused. They acknowledge that it’s great to get together and have a moan about the times they were treated unfairly by the industry. But they want DANC to be a space that is owned by the people who attend.
To create a community of disabled actors, dancers, singers, musicians, photographers, writers, film makers, directors and artists. The list being endless.
DANC wants to be a place where links can be created – to find people within the community to be involved in projects and be found by industry professionals looking for artists and performers with disabilities. They want to create a community so rich in talent that there can no longer be industry professionals saying, “I want to employ an artist with a disability but I just don’t know where to find them?”
DANC want to run a larger London based event at the end of the year – and they want to continue running DANC on a longer term basis.
For more information about DANC please click here