About the workshop
Find Your Engine is a full-day inclusive ballet workshop for all abilities, movement backgrounds, and body types.
Whether you use a wheelchair, crutches, or move in another way, the workshop is designed with every participant in mind.
Using the Suzie Birchwood Methodology, informed by Universal Design and the Dance Unstuck Method, the day explores ballet’s core language — line, musicality, and phrasing — through multiple pathways.
Participants are invited to discover their own “engine”: the primary artistic drive within their body. Legs, wheels, crutches, torso, spine — all are valid, all are welcome. Through exploration, improvisation, duet, and ensemble work, participants build movement skills and create shared choreography together.
No prior ballet experience necessary.
About Workshop Lead
Suzie Birchwood is a disabled dance artist, educator, and facilitator with over 25 years of experience in performance, choreography, and inclusive dance practice.
After embracing disability at 17 during classical ballet training, she developed a practice spanning both mainstream and disabled dance, discovering new creative possibilities through movement. As a wheelchair dance artist, Suzie has performed and created work nationally and internationally with companies including Stopgap Dance Company, Ballet Cymru, Candoco Dance Company, Lila Dance, and the Marc Brew Company, as well as presenting her own work at Sadler's Wells.
What to expect
- The workshop is structured to take you on a journey, from individual exploration through to shared ensemble work, you will explore the core language of ballet: line, direction, musicality, and phrasing.
- You will be invited to find your own way into each movement, to identify your engine, the part of your body that drives, initiates, and articulates, and to work from there with full intention and integrity.
- You will be supported throughout by Suzie and given clear tools and language to help you make conscious, creative choices about how you move, so that by the end of the day you leave with new skills, new vocabulary, and a deeper understanding of what your body can do.
Find out more about Suzie Birchwood and her practice - https://suziebirchwoodconsultancy.com/
Tickets
Sliding Scale - £20 - £40
To ensure accessibility for those on a lower income, we use a sliding scale ticket price.
You can choose what you pay between £20-£40 based on your circumstances. We wont ask for proof of why, we just ask that you are honest.
Accessibility
The workshop and venue spaces are wheelchair accessible and have accessible toilets.
If you would like to discuss accessibility or further information on the workshop please email - admin@indepen-dance.org.uk