Academy Dance wins Silver at Dance Live! 2025

Our Dance team travelled to High Wycombe last week to participate in the annual national dance competition, Dance Live!. This competition brings dance teams from across the entire country together to compete for the gold in dance.

Our dancers have been rehearsing for months, giving sneak peeks at their performance at the Open Evening and during the recent Dance Festival, leaving us eager to see what they could achieve at this year's competition after taking home the Silver last year.

Their performance, Let Her Speak, is about the relationship between humans and Mother Nature.

In an absolutely beautiful performance, the dance team once again made the Academy proud, bringing home the silver medal for the second year in a row. It was incredible to see everybody’s hard work pay off.

The judges provided detailed feedback and compliments on the performance, giving us ideas on developing and preparing for our run for gold next year. Here are just a couple of things the judges had to say:

"Shoutout to the elements, especially with the contact work. Characterisation from each dancer was beautiful, and they almost acted as their element with the quality of dance they displayed. I love that you all came together and had a moment just to shout, really working together as a team! It was a beautiful montage of our planet’s beauty, fragility, grace, and power. You captured our hearts with the energy and power of the entire performance. Well rehearsed, with lovely use of silks, great emotion that took us on a journey. The lifts were executed well, and the formations were well thought out. All the dancers executed moves excellently, with a lovely set of dancers that elevated the performance."

"The Earth cape with lights going around it was a nice touch. Using the black fabric as mascara, which evolved into movement and then into dancers, was visually beautiful. The costumes were epic. The effort you all put into them was clear, and they were beautiful. The costumes for earth, water, and fire were identifiable and stood out on stage."

We are pleased to give you a sneak peek of the professional photos taken at the competition below. The full set of images will be available for purchase next week and the funds raised will go towards Dance Live! 2027. 

You can watch the full performance here: