Flash Dancers from LS11 to Millennium Square

From the collection of

The Yorkshire Film Archive at York St John University save and celebrate screen heritage made in or about Yorkshire. They connect broad and diverse audiences to their cultural and socially significant collection that reflects the life, landscape, and identity of the people of the region since the 1890s. Together with their sister archive in the North East they form the Yorkshire and North East Film Archive, a unique pan-regional resource with over 75,000 moving image artefacts. They unlock the collections for artists, academics, curators, programmers, researchers, and producers to reveal compelling stories from the vaults. www.yfanefa.com

Flash Dancers from LS11 to Millennium Square

Yorkshire Film Archive
Beeston
2002
Sound

These children understand the meaning of Girl Power as they put the graft into their craft to win over crowds at Millennium Square.

Just two years after the success of this project, DAZL (Dance Action Zone Leeds) was established by Susan Rautenberg (an NHS planner for Children's Services) and Jan Burkhardt (a Public Health Specialist). The organisation aims to provide children and young people aged 3-19 from across Leeds with high quality dance provision which improves health and tackles inequality.

This imaginative scheme boosts not only physical but also mental and emotional health and social connection helping to ensure positive health outcomes for an area with long-term challenges. This film is a great example of how one local community-led initiative can have greater impact when championed by local authorities.

The Flash Community Dance Company based at Trinity Church in Beeston is a local community youth group which provides dance training for children aged 8 to 16. They are in training to perform on stage in the Millennium Square in Leeds as part of the Leeds City Council Breeze 2002.

They are filmed performing for a crowd and there are interviews with those involved before and after the event about why this project is important.

Looking at Beeston

Hope and community aspirations for a new millennium. A snapshot of the not-too-distant past shows how radically life has changed for one West Yorkshire community.

Beeston is an area of Leeds which has drawn unhappy international attention more than once in recent decades. Struggles with economic disadvantage, crime, drugs and derelict homes have created unbearable living conditions for some residents. But this is a community which has refused to be daunted by the scale of the challenge and has found imaginative ways to tackle its many problems. These videos provide evidence of the difference strategic funding can make at a grass roots level and the power of community action.