CAPA College’s CHARGE Boys selected to take centre stage at prestigious National Youth Dance Festival in Birmingham this summer

Young dancers from across the country will represent their home regions and perform at One Dance UK’s National Youth Dance Festival – U.Dance.

The U.Dance National Festival takes place in Birmingham from 22-24 July at the vibrant Midlands Arts Centre, just one week before the city hosts the 2022 Commonwealth Games, and involves thousands of young dancers on stage, on screen and online.

Yorkshire-based CHARGE Boys is an innovative scheme from CAPA College for boys aged 11-16 from across Yorkshire and beyond. It offers first-class training to enthusiastic and talented young people to help them develop their performance ability, build confidence and learn transferable skills in a fun, creative and enjoyable environment. The group were thrilled to find out they had been selected from hundreds of other entries to perform at the 3-day festival. They will be travelling to the UK’s second city this July to represent their region and showcase their talent and creativity.

As part of the U.Dance National Festival, they will perform with other selected youth dance groups from around the country, take part in workshops with some of the UK’s best dance companies and shows, learn about a range of dance careers and much more.

Their piece, Highly Charged, was choregraphed by Keith Luke Gillott and Sean Anthony Selby and is described as an explosion of dance. Celebrating the boys passion for dance, this high-impact original piece fuses commercial, jazz and contemporary. The piece was created to highlight the boys’ passion for dancing when moving. The boys wanted to perform a piece about transitioning from lockdown to a live performance setting.

Speaking about being selected for the festival, group leader Sean Anthony Selby says:
“Festivals like U.Dance will always be a milestone in any young performer’s journey to pursuing their dreams. We are excited to be able to have another opportunity to raise the awareness of young male performers within the dance industry, and we are proud that we get to highlight the talent that comes from the North of England. This group was formed over the lockdown period. The boys spent every Saturday learning different dance techniques in the comfort of their front living rooms. Being a part of this fantastic national event will help to further inspire the boys to pursue a career within the Performing Arts.”

Head of Children and Young People’s Dance at One Dance UK, Laura Nicholson says:
“We are delighted to welcome CHARGE Boys to the U.Dance National Festival 2022! The sheer volume of talent and creativity this year is truly inspiring, and after two years of the festival being online only, we are delighted to finally be back in person. We can’t wait to see these incredible young people take to the stage and shine!”

The U.Dance National Showcases will also feature special guest artists such as the National Youth Dance Companies of England and Scotland, students from New York City as part of a youth exchange programme with Scottish Ballet, and the recent winner of BBC Young Dancer, Adhya Shastry.