My Dancing related developments for the New Year

Developed with Latinmotion

Enhancinh my participation and spreading awareness to improve inclusivity for the UK's biggest latin dancing New Year event. This was for NYE Fest organised by Birmingham's Latinmotion at Hilton Birmingham Metropole Hotel at the NEC. The event is three days of dancing workshops, classes, dancing parties, social matinee and live performances from professional dancers from the UK and around the world.


Background
Since 2016 I became part of the event as a volunteer and eventually, a participant behind the scenes. However there have been in recent a lot of barriers and obstacles which can affect a presence of a dancer who is neurodivergent with hidden disabilities or with anxiety. I have personally faced unfortunate prejudice and discrimination which has affected my presence. This led to the creation of the embrace of dancing in April 2023. During the previous version of NYE Fest I was sharing to some of the events key participants a trail video promotion of the Embrace Dancing initiative. During the autumn of 2025 I had a number of conversations with the co-founder of Latinmotion's Mauricio Rayes on how what could be done to improve social and dancing experiences to everyone regardless of abilities and difficulties. This led to being advised to develop a series of short guides on video and for social media to enable attendees and participants to be more accommodating and more inclusive.

Through my personal experiences as a volunteer, I wanted to help improve the experience for everyone and address previous changes that have negatively affected confidence.

Preparation
To enable this idea possible, I had a number of meetings and conversations with Mauricio over the best way forward. Firstly I have shared extracts from the downloadable inclusivity pledges linked with the Plus Value Awareness project "Inclusive to dance" and the existing examples of social media carousel templates to present short tips and guides linked with the awareness initiative embrace dancing.

For the volunteer information guide a number of prototypes has been developed for over six months with volunteer leader Brighon.

Social media template
An amended version of the social media templates came from the advice and guidance from Mauricio and his son Kamraan. With the guidance and advice I made a number of changes and alterations this includes shortening the information and to alter the language to appear more user-friendly and more inviting tone. In addition I was advised to develop a different pictorial design linked with each guidance step.

Video
From the guidance that was used for social media was converted as part of the video presentation. A series of two short videos was developed with a duration within three minutes.
The first process was for me to present to the camera that includes dancing inclusivity tips. Secondly I made some video editing to keep the time within the three minute duration. The graphics and presentation starts in the third process focusing on the titles, closing credits and additional videos and extracts of the embrace dancing online feature. The final two processes involve the on-screen captions and transitional effects.
As a result, two short videos was made, the first edition focuses on classes and workshops with the second version on partner related dancing parties and events.

The video guides are available to watch by selecting the blog article link below

Flyer
12 months earlier I developed and shared a prototype flyer of the embrace dancing initiative. It was enable dancers and participants to explore the embrace dancing online feature. My idea was to display the embrace dancing flyer within the event space of NYE Fest. At the time that initial reaction by the Latinmotion team was positive. Fast forwarded to December 2025, a family of printed flyers was developed and was displayed in the welcome area of NYE Fest between 31st December 2025 to 2nd January 2026. In addition I was networking with various key participants of this event and it was shared to a number of people including Moe Flex ( a multi discipline latin dancing & musicality teacher and an international Latin dancing events host), SuperDixion (a Kizomba dance teacher and online radio broadcaster), Sol (kozomba teacher) and Pierre Henry (Dance teacher & DJ).

In addition, a handful of copies were distributed to spread the word to their dancing communities including Robert White aka Bobby Blanco & Jean White (Co-founders of London's Manbo City) and Tarek Nsiri (Founder of Me Salsa, a nationwide dancing classes and events provider)

I have mentioned about developing the embrace dancing video guides and social media templates to all the names mentioned along with Davina (from Merchant and Davina), Gary & Emma (from Feel Good Salsa)

Summary
I hope what I have developed with Latinmotion is a starting point to spread the word to dance communities to have an open mind and improve the dancing environments and to be more inclusive and accommodating.

Volunteer Information guide

A specially made interactive digital document was developed exclusively for the volunteers and key participants of NYE Fest. It was designed to provide consistent standards for interpersonal qualities and an improved support structure.

This was developed based on my previous experiences as a volunteer, as well as listening to the experiences of other event volunteers.

The feedback from the volunteers was positive, and hopefully this can be developed further for the summer event, Motion City.

Accessible events map

I designed a special version of the event location map. This was originally developed for my digital organiser while volunteering at previous versions of the event.

I have received a lot of feedback from event visitors that they prefer the version I developed, as it is clearer and easier to understand. As a result, I arranged with Mauricio for my version of the map to be available as an additional option for event visitors and participants.

The example shown was modified for security reasons.

This project is linked with the development catagories Participation, Awareness & Creative

Explore the Embrace dancing online feature to disocver the dancing related awareness projects and other content

Visit the Dancing Direction feature with summary information of my dancing related projects & involvements

Notice to editors

Keith Mckenzie
Keith is an awareness campaigner, a creative designer (Graphic design and digital art) and a salsa dancing participant

With a background in Art & Design (including Graphic Design & Digital art) and a participant in music-related film documentaries, events & record label project King Of the Beats including filming and behind the scene preparations.

Keith was educated at Hereford College of the Arts, the University of Northampton, Birmingham City University and Google's Digital Garage. Since 2000, he has developed over twenty years in providing awareness projects, campaigns and activities with the Awareness brand Plus Value Awareness along with Differences Originals. Also are involved with salsa classes in the local community as an assistant. Also have participated in major dancing conventions twice a year at Birmingham's NEC for Birmingham Latinmotion and London's ManboCity.

In 2022, Keith become a featured community participant for Birmingham who became part of special projects and campaigns to promote a positive legacy beyond hosting the commonwealth games