The Kate Stanforth Academy of Arts is an inclusive dance school offering online dance classes to those who would otherwise have no way to access dance and exercise.

It was founded by Kate Stanforth, who became disabled at 14 and had to give up her pre-professional ballet training, but never lost her passion for dance and dance education. Dance lessons are primarily held online and are accessible to students no matter their needs, with students regularly participating from their wheelchairs or beds.

Over the years the academy has offered hundreds of students the chance to dance who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to, through weekly online sessions in a range of dance styles. We’ve also worked with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures, Layton Williams, The Royal Ballet School and many many more!

To continue to be able to provide dance classes to people who would otherwise miss out, we desperately need funding and so we’re asking for your help today. Any donations you can give will help disabled people access dance, exercise and a thriving community. For our dancers these classes are not just exercise, but a chance to meet other like minded people with many fast friendships being formed. Being disabled can be lonely, and these classes offer our dancers a connection to others, an art form, and the world beyond their bedrooms.

We have a wide range of projects we are trying to fund, from our prestigious partnership with the Royal Ballet School offering our students a once in a lifetime chance to train in ballet at the top levels, to developing our hand tap programme known as “Beatz”, to providing weekly online sessions in a range of dance styles, and every donation will help make these opportunities a reality for our students.

Why £20,000?

Our minimum core operating costs are approximately £10,000 a year. That covers the essentials needed to keep Kate Stanforth Academy of Arts running: our teaching, online delivery, administration, digital platforms and organisational costs.

The additional funding would allow us to develop more classes and workshops, create performance and creative opportunities, work with more disabled artists and respond to the access needs of our dancers.

Rather than constantly fundraising simply to keep going, we could spend more of our time doing what the Academy actually exists to do - create opportunities for disabled dancers.

What could your donation make possible?

£30 - Pays for one hour of inclusive dance teaching.

£50 – Pays for a set of custom tap gloves to allow students to participate in hand tap sessions

£117 - Pays for our Zoom subscription for an entire year, keeping dance accessible to people joining us from home.

£500 - Could help us deliver additional classes, workshops and creative opportunities for disabled dancers.

£1,000 - Covers 10% of our minimum annual core operating costs.

And you don't need to donate £30 to make a difference. £5 or £10 helps. Sharing this fundraiser helps. Telling someone about our work helps.

We’ve set our funding goal large, but every penny is gratefully received and will be used to give disabled dancers a space to dance and access the wonderful dance community.

If you would like to learn more about us and our dancers, fund a specific project or are interested in working with us, we’d love to hear from you via our website at https://www.katestanforthacademyofdance.com/