Training Workshop with Visiting Artist - Suzie Birchwood

About the workshopFind 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