Remembering Tracey Harris

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Today, 20th March 2025, Downland Dance remembers the life of Tracey Harris – a former teacher, adult student, organiser, and all around supporter of Downland Dance, whose passion for dance truly knew no end.

Tracey began learning ballet as an adult student after enrolling her children in local ballet classes. After a few years of beginners’ classes, Tracey discovered she had a talent for dancing, and she began taking classes more seriously – working her way through the RAD Vocational Graded Exams, and participating in performances and other events. Eventually, as her knowledge and confidence grew, Tracey took the plunge and enrolled herself on the RAD Teacher Training course. It was soon after Tracey was accepted onto the course that she was sadly diagnosed with breast cancer, though as a woman of determination, she wouldn’t let this stop her from achieving her goals. Tracey continued her Teacher Training whilst undertaking treatment for cancer, and her perseverance paid off as she graduated after two years – becoming an RAD registered teacher and receiving her teaching credentials by Dame Darcey Bussell at the RAD Headquarters in what she described as one of the proudest moments of her life. Tracey continued teaching for Downland Dance, and even produced her own shows. Her East Hagbourne classes grew in popularity, seeing Tracey become a much loved and well respected teacher by both her students and her adult peers. Tracey would sadly succumb to her illness on 20th March 2015, but she is still remembered fondly by friends and former students. One former student wrote this touching account of Tracey for International Women’s Day 2025:

Mrs Tracey Harris was a ballet teacher and one of the strongest women I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.
Tracey was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, and underwent chemo for quite some time. Whilst going through this awful treatment, Tracey helped get me personally through 5 different ballet exams. At no point did she stop helping myself or my class from obtaining good grades, and even though some lessons were taught whilst sat from her chair only, we all passed each and every exam.

Tracey had a lot of strength. Not only did she believe in all her students, she did sponsored walks to raise money for cancer research and helped to fundraise whilst simultaneously organising and choreographing various ballet performances.

Tracey beat breast cancer, and we were all overjoyed, however it was to return, spread and eventually take her life.

Even throughout her second cancer journey, Tracey maintained her ability to teach for as long as she could, inspiring many of us to keep dancing, and to keep fundraising for charity. Tracey’s death was, unfortunately, not unexpected, but it was heartbreaking, as all she had shown was resilience, bravery and determination, traits that can only be commended and admired.

– Amy Mathews

As we reach the 10 year anniversary of her passing, Downland Dance are remembering Tracey’s passion, strength, and love of dance by raising money for Cancer Research UK in her honour. Over the course of this year, we will be hosting some free workshops that anyone can take part in, whether a current or previous student, guest from another school, and whether they knew Tracey or not, the classes will be open to all. If you’d like to donate to help us reach our goal of raising £500 for Cancer Research UK, or to see which workshops are available and book your place, please see the links below. Feel free to post a comment at the bottom of this page with your memories of Tracey.

See Workshops
Donate to Cancer Research UK

Amount Raised for Cancer Research UK

Target: £500

£97.06 (19.41%)

Changes to Payment Options

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We are making a change to the way we charge for dance classes. From 1st January 2025 we will be introducing a new payment model that charges for classes based on the amount of time you spend in dance classes each week, as opposed to the current system which charges based on the number of weekly classes you attend. We think the new system will be easier to understand, and fairer to our dancers. For most dancers, the amount you are charged each month won’t change, though the new price structure might mean an increase or decrease in price for some people. Please see our new price guide below:

New Price Guide
(Effective 01.01.2025)

Class Time
(Weekly):

 Monthly Price:

Up to 30 mins

 £21.00

Up to 45 mins

 £25.50

Up to 1 hour

£33.00
Up to 2 hours

£48.50
Up to 3 hours

£60.00
Unlimited

£65.00

For clarity, the number of hours you spend in dance classes is determined by the classes you are enrolled in. Dancers who would like to have the flexibility of attending a different class each week would need to be enrolled in each of those classes, even if the length of time is the same. This could affect your subscription bracket.

If you would like to change the classes you are enrolled in before the new prices come into effect, please contact Adrian at info@downland-dance.co.uk by 15th December 2024. We’ll send all of our dancers a reminder about the changes 2 weeks before that deadline.

We will also be increasing our subscription term to 11 months, which means fees will now be collected from September – July. This works out as a 10% increase in fees, though we’re doing our best to keep classes affordable by spreading the increase out over an extra month. We try to increase fees as minimally as possible, though it is sadly necessary in this case to help us to meet our rising costs and ensure a stable future for the school. If you would struggle to meet the new class fees, please get in touch, as bursary funding may be available.

In line with the change to subscription brackets, we have also revised our PAYG rates to more accurately reflect the amount of time spent in classes. From 1st January 2025 our new PAYG rates will be:

New PAYG Rates
(Effective 01.01.2025)

Length of Class:

Price:

30 Minutes
(Tiny Tippy Toes and Pointework only)

£6.50

Up to 1 hour

£12.00
Up to 1.5 hours

£16.50

Finally, we are clarifying our terms around pausing and cancelling subscriptions. From 01.11.2024, the subscription term is considered to be from the 1st – last day of each month, regardless of which date your payment is taken. Opting to pause or cancel a subscription will mean that your subscription stays active until the end of the month that you gave notice in. For example, if you gave notice to cancel your subscription in January, your subscription would stay active until 31st January, enabling you to continue coming to classes until that date. Your January payment would be due, and would go through regardless of which day in the month you gave notice, or of which date your payment is taken.

We understand there are quite a few changes coming into effect, which is why we’re giving you plenty of notice to become accustomed. As a school, we push to offer the best possible dance training, and we try to do that with the most fair and easy to understand system around dance class fees; without charging through the roof or expecting unreasonable lump sum payments.

Thank you so much for your understanding and support of Downland Dance.

Summer 2023

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Bursaries Now Available!

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