For those who don’t know, British Dance Edition, or BDE as it’s affectionately known, is a prestigious biannual festival of British Dance. Pawlet, Ellie and Amy were lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend BDE last week, in Cardiff and Newport. With a showcase of almost 50 British dance companies and a delegation from around the world.

Whilst in Wales the team had the chance to see performances by Aakash Odedra, Phoenix Dance Theatre, Scottish Dance Theatre, Candoco Dance Company and others. It was also a great opportunity catch up with some of the artists featuring in this year’s LDIF programme, including Dan Daw who presented his work BEAST and who is looking forward to showcasing the UK debut of On One Condition in May at Attenborough Arts Centre. Pawlet also had chance for a quick photo with Deborah Baddoo, Artistic Director of State of Emergency, who will be speaking at the Black Women in Dance conference, and Gail Parmel from ACE Dance and Music.

Ellie and Amy manned the Serendipity stall at the trade fair, talking all things LDIF and also showing off the new publication Blurring Boundaries! It was wonderful to meet representatives from some fantastic dance organisations and companies, both familiar and new, and be assured that the UK dance scene is thriving.

So after a busy few days the team is energised as we get closer to launching LDIF16, and also look forward to BDE 2018 in Bournemouth and Poole.