GCU Dance: Reflecting on a busy year of competitions and charity fundraising

Members of the GCU Dance group have been reflecting on a busy year of competitions and dance showcases, all while fundraising for a Glasgow-based women’s support charity.

The dance team invites dancers from different genres to come together and compete at university competitions, competing in the form of tap, jazz, jazz commercial, contemporary and lyrical.

During the month of February, the GCU Dance team competed in a number of competitions across Scotland; including Take The Stage at the University of St Andrews, Aberdeen’s Silver City and Dundee Dance Fest.

After a busy month of competitions, the team wanted to bring some performances closer to home by hosting an on-campus showcase titled ‘Caledonian Girls’ where £1 of each purchased ticket would go towards women’s sexual abuse support charity, Say Women.

President of GCU Dance Kirstin Richards decided joined the team after deciding to change her course and reigniting her love of dance. “I initially studied a different course but decided to leave university, so after that I ended up not doing dancing for a few years.” Explained Kirstin.

“When I started my new course at GCU, I decided to join the GCU Dance group and I’ve since become good friends with a lot of the girls. They actually encouraged me to go for Vice President in my second year! Once you become Vice President, you naturally progress on to be President the next year because of the experience you gain.”

Looking back at the February competitions, Kirstin was pleased to see the dances come together. She said: “They were all really fun to be a part of. The first university that we competed at was at St Andrews where our teams came first in Tap and then fourth place for Contemporary. We ended up having the most team members representing the genres in the competitions, despite other universities having the biggest overall teams.”

At the end of a busy month, the team wanted to showcase their routines to their own university and hosted Caledonian Girls on 18 April. The event raised £111 in ticket donations and £192 in raffle tickets. Kirstin explained: “The Caledonian Girls event was organised to showcase that dancing we’ve been doing throughout the year, so every dance that we’ve learned in classes.

It was really busy in the run up to it because there was so much to do. Our committee is quite small so it can be more difficult to delegate tasks, but everyone pitches in and takes on things to do to make sure everything can be done.

When selling tickets for it, £1 of each ticket will go towards our chosen charity ‘Say Women’ and we also planned a raffle to raise more funds for it. We’re an all-female team at the moment, we wanted to support a women’s charity.”

Whilst being a good opportunity for dancers to compete together, the GCU Dance team has also provided the chance to meet and socialise with students from across the university. Kirstin said: “It’s really nice, because to this day I’m still good friends with members who have since graduated. Everyone really gets along, which I think is also because we all have the same interest in dance.

We’re a close-knit group, even down to the first year students who only joined in September. There’s no separation between the different age groups which is nice as well, we’re very much a team effort.

You can keep up-to-date with the GCU Dance team on their Instagram page

By Rachael McAlonan

Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media