Building on the creative ideas developed through the film Start to Finish, DansAthletic explored the sporting ideals of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

This live show featured 100 children and young people from the 5 Olympic Boroughs and was performed as the launch of Big Dance 2006 inside and around Canary Wharf Underground Station, and as the launch of the Newham Arts Festival at Stratford Station. DansAthletic is also a resource pack for teachers co-written by Luca Silvestrini and Kathryn Sexton and available from EastLondonDance.

Read DansAthletic – the marriage of the dance and sport sectors in People Dancing.

“Sport and dance offer a good and useful marriage, but as in all long lasting relationships, it’s about respecting and complementing each other. It’s not about becoming one – dance and sport are different and unique. I began to work on DansAthletic convinced that sports in general, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games as a specific theme, are very good vehicles to discover, generate and learn movement, and offer ideal starting points for the exploration of physical interaction and contact work. The muscular and emotional similarities between a dancer and an athlete, as well as their focus and strive for improvement, offer both a context and a positive point of reference for young dancers, and they are especially useful to those less familiar or uncomfortable with physical expression.”
Luca Silvestrini