Since 2019 the project director Keith Mckenzie developed a family of publications which include awareness and understanding by providing suggestions to make sure that dancers with hidden differences are not disadvantaged when attending classes workshops events and conventions.
The documents titled “Beyond Understanding”, were originally limited to the leaders and key crew members of the Birmingham base salsa dancing organisation Latinmotion.
Then in 2022, these documents were updated to include volunteering suggestions for participating in dancing conventions living with hidden differences. This was initially shared with Birmingham’s Latinmotion and London’s Manbo City linked with the NEC summer convention MotionCity. Then in the same year, these were featured online for the autism awareness audiences on the website of one of the UK’s most respected awareness campaigns with Anna Kennedy OBE.
Now being openly available for everyone for the first time the documents have been rewritten and updated. This was developed to make sure more people involved in dancing are aware of factors which every needs to consider to enable inclusivity. In addition, the updated documents are a response to the concerns of experiencing unpleasant amounts of discrimination and ableism.
You can access these documents by visiting the online special Embrace Dancing on the Plus Value website and on the Project Director’s personal website
The specially written publication provides insight into the challenges of an independent person with hidden differences in specific partner dancing environments like Salsa Bachata, Kizomba, Cuban Salsa and many more. The documents also provide a variety of solutions and suggestions to make sure a person with hidden can able to maintain a positive experience without compromising situations which can affect their presence
Why this was created
Despite the dancing environments having a variety of people with different backgrounds, the project director have observed and experienced many situations when some people with hidden differences can be at a disadvantage and in some cases become discouraged. Especially if there’s little or no ground-level understanding provided. These documents are designed to enable and improve inclusive environments regardless of the specific difficulties, strengths and any ability and capacity limitations.
The History
The Beyond Understanding publication focused on salsa dance classes and social events for dancing environments was originally written in 2019 then was recreated in 2022 it was originally for the salsa dancing organisations linked with the NEC based Salsa dancing convention “MotionCity” including Birmingham’s Latinmotion and London’s Mambo city. This was after the project director involved in MotionCity as a volunteer and participant.
Since the first document was created further issues occurred which the project director felt through observations and has listening to different viewpoints. So updated suggestions of conventions and documents were published during Summer 2022 with additional information and greater insight which can support event management and crew members.
Later in 2022, these publications were updated with two additional versions for Dancing Conventions with a guidance document for volunteers living with hidden differences during dancing conventions featured on the website of the award-winning awareness campaigner Anna Kennedy OBE.
In 2023 a dance related awareness dancing project “Inclusive to Dance” was created including a dancing pledge. However after the project director experienced ablest discrimination at a dance class during the NYE Fest on New Year’s Eve into 2024, he decided turn his negative experiences into a positive by updating the suggestions publications are updated again and are now available online directly via the Websites of Plus Value Awareness and my website available to everyone.
Click here to the Embrace Dancing page to access and download the documents
Discover more
To anyone involved in dancing if you need to benefit from this document and would like additional aspects to spread the word and could benefit your dancing community, organisation, convention & events, get in touch the project director’s LinkedIn profile
Plus Value Awareness Update blog 