Our Company
Dandelion Dance Company is an Ottawa based youth dance theatre company which explores social issues through movement. The company's repertoire is driven by the experiences, reflections and passions of the young women, who range in age from ages 13 to 19, and include such topics as child labour, hunger, war, equality and inclusion. All the performance pieces are chosen, researched and choreographed by the members of the company, under the mentorship of Hannah Beach.
Our Mission
Our mission is grounded in the belief that youth have important ideas to share and that dance is a powerful medium with which to share these ideas.
We believe that an all-female setting creates an environment that allows young women to safely explore issues that may be specific to growing up as young women in this society. The company is committed to supporting youth in their research, artistic experimentation and in sharing their choreography.
Our commitment is to the creation of dance theatre pieces that reflect social issues relevant to the current company members. We are a fully inclusive company that is not only open to persons with different backgrounds and abilities, but we acknowledge the gifts and enrichment that evolves when persons with various backgrounds and abilities work together.
We view the exploration of the possibilities of dance theatre as a powerful means for personal and collective growth. We share this exploration with diverse populations through dance, speaking, teaching and writing.
Hannah Beach is the founding director of the Dandelion Dance Company, an inclusive dance company for young women that explores social issues through movement. She also founded and directs Tournesol Dance, a school of interpretive movement for children. Ms. Beach has combined her classical dance training with her background in social work and children‘s rights, choosing to facilitate dance in a manner that embraces all body types and abilities, and encourages children and youth to explore their feelings, reflections and experiences through movement.
“My goal is to embrace the vision of youth and allow them to choreograph their own work with my support.”
“I believe that youth have important and valid ideas to share and that it is important that they do so, not as a retrospective when they are older, but now, while their ideas are important to them.”
The Dandelion Dance Company tours on a monthly basis sharing the choroegraphy of youth. Tournesol Dance and the Dandelion Dance Company share their work together annually in June at the National Arts Centre at our 'Honesty in Movement' Exhibit.
Ms. Beach is available to give lectures and workshops for conferences and schools, providing insight, inspiration and tools to teachers and professionals on how to use inclusive interpretive movement to allow children to explore their world, achieve personal and collective growth, and to affect social change within classroom and school settings.
Ms. Beach teaches interpretive movement at Joan of Arc Academy. She is a guest lecturer for the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa and the Pauline Jewett Institute of Women's Studies at Carleton University. She facilitates and speaks at numerous conferences including ones for early childhood educators as well as teaching professional development days for school boards. She has facilitated workshops for the Council of Drama and Dance in Education (CODE's) annual provincial conferences, sharing her work on how to initiate social change through dance in the Ontario school system. The work of her company was showcased for the entire conference in 2007, which was received with another standing ovation! Ms. Beach was nominated for the 2006 YWCA Women of Distinction Award for her work with youth.
Ms. Beach is the author of the I Can Dance book series, which are inclusive dance education books supporting children of all abilities in their exploration of dance.