Ballet for All! day with Birmingham Royal Ballet
Ballet for All! day with Birmingham Royal Ballet
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.
“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.”
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?
Read the full report from the day
Photo © Hannah Beveridge