Leeds’ West Yorkshire Playhouse was bursting with talented teenagers on Saturday 1 April, as over 300 of Yorkshire’s young choreographers and dancers came together to perform to a sell-out audience.

Featuring youth dance companies from every corner of Yorkshire, FRESH is Yorkshire Dance’s annual showcase of the region’s most talented young dancers. This year, twelve companies performed to an audience of around 750 people.

The day was packed full of workshops covering a range of styles including dancehall, musical theatre, Irish dance and hip hop folk.

The companies that performed at Fresh 2017 were selected by an independent panel of dance experts at smaller regional showcases around Yorkshire earlier this year, and from film submissions sent to Yorkshire Dance. This year 50 companies competed for the coveted performance slots at Fresh – the highest number of submissions received in the eight-year history of Fresh.

Groups performing in West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Quarry Theatre were LWHS Dance Company, Streetkingz, Phoenix Youth Academy Seniors, Me2 Inclusive Youth Dance Company, Mechanics Performing Arts, DAZL Senior Dance Company, McKeown Irish Dance Academy, Explosive, Shahck Out Youth Dance, Momentum Dance, High Storrs Dance Company and Hull Dance Youth Company

Yorkshire Dance hosted a fringe-style event earlier in the evening for which tickets sold out in just 48 hours, featuring CAPA Juniors, Dance United Yorkshire Performance Company, Wath Boys Break Crew, Hype Dance Academy Tappers, The Space Dance Studio, Metamorphosis Youth Dance Company, East Riding Youth Dance County Company and Street Beat Elite.

Two of these fantastic companies have now been selected by an independent panel of dance experts to represent Yorkshire at the national U.Dance festival in Birmingham.

Me2 Inclusive Youth Dance Company and High Storrs Youth Dance Company will join youth dance companies from across the country on stage at Birmingham Hippodrome for this 4-day festival in July.

Me2 Inclusive Youth Dance Company have been working together for 6 years and have performed at Fresh four times. This is the first time they have been selected to attend U.Dance with their piece Who Are You? Who Am I? Who Are We? which is inspired by discussions and explorations around identity and what makes us all unique.

High Storrs Youth Dance Company were new to Fresh this year, having never before applied to be considered. The group of dancers all come from High Storrs College in Sheffield. Their piece, Disparate Perplexion, is a response to Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica and its chaos and violence.

Plans are already underway for Fresh 2018, which will take place in York early next year.