Ballet for All!

As part of Dance Leaders Group’s Strength 2 Strength project: Art Form Inclusivity in the Midlands, on 7 July 2025, National Youth Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet came together to deliver Ballet For All!—a day of connection, creativity, and hands-on learning about making ballet more inclusive, chaired and led by the incredible Suzie Birchwood.

Open to anyone working with or interested in working with disabled dancers, the event offered practical tools, shared experiences, and the chance to explore accessible approaches to teaching and choreography. Through workshops and real-life examples from NYB’s All In! programme and BRB’s Freefall Dance Company, the day opened up important conversations about representation, opportunity, and the future of inclusive dance.

It was a joyful and thought-provoking day of dance and discussion. NYB was particularly proud of Beyond Ballet® choreographers Grace Thompson, who led, and Anna Smith, who assisted in delivering the NYB practical ballet session. Together, they explored how an adage exercise could be taught and translated in an accessible way. Grace used a variety of Makaton symbols and props to communicate her ideas. Freefall Dance Company performed a beautiful piece of repertoire and led a fun, engaging workshop. And Suzie Birchwood delivered a joyful, powerful, and energetic session exploring Universal Design of Instruction.

Discussion topics included:

Who decides what ballet looks like and who it is for?
If access is not an add-on, how do we build ballet from the ground up?
Is the goal to add people into ballet, or to change ballet itself?

These questions led to rich and varied conversations. A full report, created by Natalie Haslam, NYB’s Project Manager for Inclusion and Outreach, will follow. We hope to use the report’s findings and the connections established on the day to push the work forward and reach new audiences.

Feedback from participants included:

“I felt so comfortable being myself. Consideration of resources was fantastic, and the advanced information about what to expect was properly anxiety-reducing. Everybody’s hosting was 10/10. I have not stopped smiling!”

“Use of Makaton was a game changer.”

“Thought-provoking.”

“I loved all the different ways to look at movement.”

“Heart-warming and important, thank you!”

More about: “Art Form Inclusivity in the Midlands”

The 2025 NYB All In! company is made up of NYB, That! Dance and Future Shift dancers aged 14-25. They will be creating a short dance film in collaboration with English Heritage. It will be filmed at Kenilworth Castle and premiered at the Residential Performance Company sharing on Saturday 16th August. If you would like to find out more about this work, please email jo.meredith@nationalyouthballet.org or natalie.haslam@nationalyouthballet.org

🔊 Audio version available