Reflections on a Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance Project: A circle of life

This article examines the outcomes of a Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance project that I facilitated for people living with cancer. Through the project people with cancer, or those associated with someone living with cancer, were invited to come together to create and perform a dance through a series of ten weekly sessions titled 'A Circle of Life'. In this article I reflect on the experiences of the participants as they moved from different levels of nervous apprehension to a place of confidence and pride. The project involved collaborations with University of Otago Arts Fellows and community artists as we moved through a ten-week period. The findings indicated the motivation of the dancers to continue attending sessions, despite hardship; their sense of pride in being part of something that was larger than themselves; the way the dance permitted them to embody a sense of courage; and finally, in performing, how they managed to share something that genuinely moved an audience.