Grace King-Turner, Activate’s Trainee Producer had the opportunity to shadow and support staff at South East Dance during their most recent event, Brighton Screendance Festival. Grace was there from 7-10 November 2025 and below shares her experience.
As part of my Trainee Producer position with Activate, I was lucky enough to spend a long weekend at South East Dance supporting Brighton Screendance Festival, and shadowing the operations of the organisation. Between Friday 7th and Monday 10th November, I shadowed meetings with external artists, had invaluable one-to-one sessions with the South East Dance team, and supported activity during a weekend of screenings and family workshops.
Kicking off the weekend of live screenings was ‘Homegrown’, a selection of screendance all made by artists across the South East. Selected by a steering group external to South East Dance, the films were diverse in dance style and aesthetic, with each one suggesting a different approach to what it means to dance for camera. It was truly a celebration of the talent in the South East, and the future of the dance industry.
Following this, the evening saw Marlborough Productions present ‘Brownton Abbey Cinematic Universe’, four films centring and elevating disabled, queer people of colour. A masterclass in defiant, celebratory, intimate and powerful screendance, these films were deeply inspiring to me as someone interested in both screendance, and queer culture. I was awestruck by the chance to watch these films, and even more so by the chance to speak to Tarik Elmoutawakil (Creator of Brownton Abbey, and Co-Creative Director and Joint CEO of Marlborough Productions) and Rob Jones (Creative Producer for Brownton Abbey) after the screening. I left that evening feeling enthused, inspired and dedicated to produce work which celebrates the voices of those so often marginalised.
Quite the contrast, Sunday’s activity included a family tap workshop for young children, followed by a screening of ‘Happy Feet’. It was brilliant to see young children get stuck into the joy of dancing, alongside some of the parents who also learnt some beginner tap moves!
It was interesting to learn that South East Dance has a programme like Activate’s CREATE! programme, tailored towards emerging dance artists in the South East, called Wayfinding. As someone passionate about early-career artist support and development, it was exciting to find out that organisations across the UK are supporting, mentoring and elevating the upcoming voices of the creative industries.
I cannot thank South East Dance enough for the generosity of their time and for opening their office doors to me for the four days I spent with them. I had a wonderful time immersed in all things dance and screendance – greatly appreciated as someone with a dance background! The kindness, generosity and passion the team had for the profile of dance and artists in the South East was really heartening, and I am confident that the future of dance is in brilliant hands with people like Cath James (Artistic Director), Linzi Whitton (Head of Programme) and Charis Crudgington (Artist & Events Manager) at the forefront!