Sophia Newton Set to Excite Crawley Community (UK) with Dance for Healing

Yinka Olatunbosun

Dance and movement artist Sophia Newton is set to bring a vibrant celebration of movement, culture, mental wellbeing and community to Crawley this June through her upcoming event, ‘Dance for Healing.’

The free participatory event will take place on Saturday June 13 at Unit 79/80, County Mall, Crawley. This event comprises dance performances, participatory dance, live music, cultural exchange, exhibition, play and other creative expressions.

Created by Sophia Newton, founder of Express & Bloom, Dance for Healing explores the power of dance beyond performance. It presents dance as a living language of release, joy, identity, memory and connection, while also highlighting how creative movement can support mental wellbeing in community spaces.

The event is expected to fuse Nigerian traditional dance with English folk dance, creating a space for cultural intersection through rhythm, movement and shared participation. It is designed to welcome people of different backgrounds into an uplifting atmosphere where they can watch, move, connect and experience dance as a tool for wellbeing, belonging and community.

Speaking about the project, Sophia Newton said:

“Dance for Healing is about creating a space where people can feel joy, culture, release and connection in a very human way. I want people to experience dance not only as something to watch, but as something that can support mental wellbeing, hold memory, lift the spirit and bring people together.”

For Newton, whose work brings together dance, expressive movement, cultural storytelling, education and community engagement, the project reflects a growing artistic vision rooted in participation, healing and mental health awareness. Her practice draws from Nigerian cultural movement traditions, expressive contemporary movement and arts-based approaches to wellbeing, creating work that is both culturally grounded and accessible to wider communities.

Through Dance for Healing, she hopes to create an experience where audiences do not simply sit back as spectators, but are invited into a shared environment of movement, sound, play and reflection. The event will include dance performances, live music, exhibition, participatory dance moments and cultural exchange, offering a rich encounter between African and English movement traditions.

The event will also feature contributions from artists from the spectrum of live music, dance, exhibition and cultural exchange, including Dayo Sax, Hurlarstringz, Abuletic, Robert Weddell, Catherine Sleeman, Zara Everington, Daniel Lawani and Joy Akpokiniovo. Together, they will help shape an afternoon of rhythm, movement, visual art, cultural exchange and shared participation.

Dance for Healing is supported by Creative Crawley through BOOST for Creative Playground, part of the Creative People and Places programme funded by Arts Council England. The support forms part of Creative Crawley’s wider commitment to community-rooted arts and creative participation in the town.

Newton’s work has increasingly centred on the role of dance in emotional expression, confidence-building, cultural identity, mental wellbeing and collective joy. With Dance for Healing, she continues to build a body of work that speaks to communities, families, artists and audiences through the shared language of the body.

Sophia Newton is a dance and movement artist, arts educator and founder of Express & Bloom, a creative space for children, young people, women and communities to explore movement, creativity, wellbeing and self-expression through dance, arts and participatory experiences.

Her work articulates dance, cultural storytelling, expressive movement, creative participation, mental wellbeing and community engagement. Using movement as a tool for confidence, her work evokes identity, emotional expression, cultural connection and collective joy.