Community & Connection: Part 2: Putting my moves where my mouth is
The revolution will be on the dance floor......
For around twenty years we’ve had access to the internet via a small hand held device available at any point in our days. People and worlds and communities and facts were instantly opened up to us. Ones we’d never heard of and ones we could only dream of. There was so much to learn and gain. It was a wild and exciting place to have unlimited freedom with.
As exciting and liberating as that world felt it has slowly but surely been stealing from us. Whilst it has provided a community and connection of sorts it has also shown its limitations. The illusion of connection and togetherness has replaced our human need to physically be around others. You’re never alone when you’re online….. even when you’re alone. It has become a go to place to zone out. To fester. To rot. Bit by bit being online seems to have taken over our lives.
2026 is the year we need to start zoning back in.
Head up, Eyes forward, Let’s go.
I don’t need to tell you this though, do I? You already know it. You’re there with me. You too are feeling the pain and damage of being brainwashed into thinking it’s normal to curl our bodies forward, strain our eyes and riddle our brains for hours at a time. You too are desperate to escape and come back to reality, right?
I can see the small changes we’re all attempting to make. No phones in the bedroom. YES! Deleting social media apps. GET RID. Emails only to be read on a laptop/desktop during work hours. WORK SHOULDN’T BE 24 HRS A DAY. Using a physical map. LOL. JOKE….Not adverse to putting it into the mix though.
All of these incremental tweaks in our lives will slowly start to change the course we seem to have found ourselves on. They will. Our heads are being lifted, our eyes once again are looking around and taking in our surroundings. Connections will return.
But perhaps we could do with a helping hand….a bigger push…
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For the past few years I have often wondered if protests actually work.
Increasingly I have seen many peace parades, protest rallies, large gatherings of people angry or empathetic or incensed about something happening in either their immediate world or further afield. The collective need to get together and make a voice heard looks impressive but do they move minds with those that matter and elicit change? I feel guilty that most marches and protests take place on a Saturday. Diverting the traffic and moving on mass up and around Whitehall they march when I am at work. And if I am not at work I selfishly don’t want to spend my day off next to work.
I’ve written before about protest posting online. Does this form of activism work or are we shouting into an echo chamber? Are our cries of discrimination/exploitation/injustice being heard or are they simply adding to the noise swirling around the internet?
I have no answers to my own questions here but what I do know is that at least these people are doing SOMETHING. They have identified a problem and are coming up with ideas for possible solutions. It’s more than I can say I am doing.
All I’m doing is lying in bed laying out all the problems I see in the world ~ A lack of community, The homogenisation of women, Shouting into the void ~ but I’m not actively DOING anything about them.
‘Don’t come to me with problems, I want solutions’ is what I hear at work everyday.
Well, Lovers, 2026 is the year I am coming up with a solution to solve our collective issue of lost connection and community.
Perhaps I’m not going to solve the issue BUT I am attempting to take small steps towards bringing it back. And those steps are a step ball change on the dance floor…..
Stay with me
2024 was my year of sex and writing. Improvement was needed on both counts. 2025 was supposed to my year of buying a flat and getting back into dance. The ‘buying a flat’ proved so much harder than I could have imagined and has unfortunately spilt over into 2026. TBC.
The return to dance was even more complicated. Contemporary classes are expensive and are mostly evenings when I’m at work. A full return to the form of dance I still dream about and studied at University for four years will have to wait.
But what about collective dance? Freestyle dancing to pop music? That was also in the manifesto of ‘Dance for 2025’. I’m sure I put it in there.
Dancing with a group of people to songs I know is something I used to do all the time ~ Youth club, all island discos, student unions, clubs, house parties, pubs, weddings. There was always dance in my life. And it was so much fun. The next day my endorphins would always running riot. I don’t know when it left my life but its absence over the years has been keenly felt. Sporadically I have tried looking for nights in pubs that offer this sort of old school fun. Club nights that play music I grew up listening to and that defines eras.
I couldn’t find what I was looking for so, just like I did fifteen years ago when I couldn’t find a comedy night that suited my needs, I am setting up my own night. I am putting my moves where my mouth is because if the music won’t come to Mohammed then Mohammed will set up her own dance night {I know three Mohammeds. Hoping at least one will be in attendance. You know who you are}
Lovers, I have great pleasure in inviting you all to come and Dance In Company.
Come spend an evening with a collection of people ~ some you might know, some you won’t ~ and just dance. Let’s all experience what it feels like to be part of a community again. If you’ll have me I’m going to guide us back to connecting with people and all being together producing endorphins ~ Clothing optional.
Let’s get back to the good old days of 10/12 years ago. Pre social media. Remember those heady days? There were places we went to and people we met ~ We went to supper clubs, film nights, comedy shows. We had work nights out that lead to dancing in clubs. We’d gather for quizzes in the pub. We met people in Uber pool ~ remember how much fun that was???
In the next few months I will be putting on an evening of purely dance. Come dressed up if you want but it’s going to be hours of simply dance so I would suggest trainers and loose clothing. Phones are not allowed. Mobiles are not on the list, they are NOT coming in. Leave them in bags, coat pockets, at home and come be present. If you want to document the evening bring a film camera. All the cool kids are back at it. Talk to someone new, get your daily step count in on one evening. Banish the unsightly dowagers hump we’re all creating and sing, jump, laugh and dance. It’s as simple as that
So you’re reliving your youth Sister With Massive Laugh tells me when I share my idea with her You’re setting up an adult Youth Club.
I’m not reliving my youth. I’m redefining my future. This is a solution I’m bringing to the table. And with your help I think we can do this together.
Please let me know if you’d be interested in being a part of Dance In Company by voting in the poll below or by leaving a comment at the bottom.
Happy New Year Lovers…..Let’s be the change we want to see in the world. More details to follow…..
📰Further AD WRITES should you so be interested…go on…I know you’re interested:
Oxford | September 2025
The Contents of My Consumption
~ Watching 📺~
With a deep love for the first two seasons of Korean fitness reality show Physical 100 I was delighted that instead of a season three they opted for a country against country game in Physical Asia. Some of the countries included are Japan, Thailand, Indonesia and….Australia{!?} I was hooked. If you like suspense, teamwork and looking at people do incredible physical feats you have no intention of ever doing from the comfort of your sofa then its a perfect January watch. Remember it’s never just about the fitness…the journey and the lessons learnt are always the winner in these types of programmes. I may or may not have watched this series twice.
Emily in Paris: Season Five | Netflix
Was the storyline as good as the other four series? {Good and storyline are being used very loosely here} No. Did I care because all I want to do is look at gorgeous outfits and experience Europe from my SW London flat? No.
The wanderlust was palpable ~ Rome, Paris AND Venice were locations this season, Emily’s outfits were divine and Philippine LeRoy-Beaulieu as sexy, self assured and simply stunning Slyvie Grateau is everything I want to be when I’m an older French woman.
~ Reading 📖 ~
Be still my beaming, beating heart. This was my book of 2025. I read it in two days and have bought it for so many people as a present {Spoiler if you’ve not received your post yet!} Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction it is a reimagining of The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Written from the point of view of the runaway slave, Jim, it is fast paced, so efficient and thoroughly gripping. I thought about it all the time and couldn’t wait to get back to it. Please dive in and discuss with me when/if you’ve finished.
Historical fiction is not my go to but I knew I wanted to see the film of this and so had to read the book first. Hamnet was a close contender for my book of 2025. Another book I just couldn’t wait to read during any spare moment. Based on the death of Shakepeares’s child I did have a continuous low level of sadness and anxiety reading it but O’Farrell balances the sadness with great story telling and character work. His wife Agnes is my new favourite literary figure. Strong, loving, insightful, empathetic. She is the one who kept pulling me back to this gorgeous tale of grief, family and love.
~ Listening 🎧 ~
Could clubbing save democracy? | Boy Problems | Wherever you listen to your podcasts
The idea for Dance in Company was born in the bath late one night listening to this episode of Boy Problems. I had recently become aware of Annie Mac’s club nights, had listened to Miranda Sawyer and Liv Little discuss the death of clubbing on We have Notes and then I found this:
Liz and Priya chat about the lost magic of meeting your coworkers at happy hour, what makes DJs the best doctors, and why America needs to bring back its 2013 vibes. It’s time to throw on your ballet flats and bandage dress, lock your phone up for the night, and work the dance floor like there’s no tomorrow. Because at this rate, who knows if there will be?
Maggie O’Farrell: Hamnet | Inklings Book Club | Wherever you listen to your podcasts
Needing to know why Shakespeare is never actually named in the book and where she got her ideas about Agnes from I thoroughly enjoyed listening to O’Farrell talk to book devourer {new word?} Jack Edwards on his book podcast Inklings. She chose to disbelieve all we know about Anne Hathaway {Anne and Agnes were interchangeable names back in them olden days} and gave the wife of one of the greatest playwrights a history and a life I now chose to believe is true.
London | January 2026
Hey! Have you filled in the poll above 👆🏽about whether you’d being up for coming to 💃🏽Dance In Company?🕺🏿 Let me know what you think…..
If you enjoy reading this post then please click that saweeet ❤️ and/or forward it on to someone else you think might be interested.
It helps me work out whether people are interested in what I’m producing….or not 🥴
I'm all the way IN 🪩
See you on the dance floor!!