Following their win at the UEFA Women's Euro 2025 final, the England Lionesses reflected on their journey, highlighting resilience, togetherness, and unwavering self-belief. Waggle Dance Co’s blog this month has some reflections on these 3 themes.

1. What was the initial vision or motivation behind starting the company five years ago?

I started Waggle Dance Co in 2020 whilst a Professional Dance Artist and Backing Singer in the pandemic I was unable to perform at live events, teach in schools or dance in a rehearsal studio. I went to The Prince’s Trust as my background was in the arts and Musical Theatre. I did not know how to set up a business (although I could smash a triple pirouette!) The enterprise course was really the beginning of working for myself not as a self-employed person working for many different companies in a variety of performance work but to work on my own dream - a dance company that wanted to co-create with young people through storytelling & creative dance. My inspiration was Ellen Robbins in NYC, Kate Prince’s Zoonation of course and looking at Physical theatre companies working with very young artists.

My vision was world - domination. I am happy to report I am still striving for that.

2. What were some of the biggest challenges the company faced in its early days, and how were they overcome?

Finance, Support, Having to continue to work freelance as well as working on WDC part-time - in the end I was unable to continue stretching myself so much and made the hard choice to go full-time on this new chapter!

I wish more people would invest in Female Founders.

3. How has the company culture evolved over the past five years?

More staff working with a Moving Art Management - getting a structure, asking for mentorship, applying for bigger, wild things and not being scared to do that.

4. What key lessons has the company learned since its inception?

I can’t run this by myself but I can still be involved in the workshop elements, from concept to delivery with Dance Maven I felt a pull on giving the reins to the wonderfully talented Dancers to deliver. It was a weird feeling giving space to others and I am much more accepting that things will go well and work well even if I personally am not there to oversee now. Respecting and Preparing has been a big milestone to then Release and see what comes back. Luckily a lot of the feedback I received was excellent and thereby the rep of the company is getting better too!

5. Are there any particularly memorable or humorous anecdotes from the company's journey that you could share?

I went to my enterprise course with an idea that wasn’t fully formed - the name came to me after I actually had completed the course. Manchester - Bees - Waggle Dance - I can still recall my flatmate Jenna J giggling with me “It’s like you’ve just transported yourself 10 years!” The name was born. The idea was a fire in my belly. Now I just actually had to take action.

TWITTER year 1. The meltdown.

First Primary School workshop in LUTON

TAX - making sure to have a Professional accountant help me after being awarded NLPG

Speaking to people with confidence at networking events - hideous, but practice makes perfect...right?!

Saddest memory - Not having the clout behind me for Oct half term workshop 2022. Learned a lot, lost some hard earned money on this project.

The Music by Gaet Allard for Waggle Dance workshop - an absolute tune!

Working with composer Tom Haines Support from Chickenshed Tales Team Year 4!

Enjoying the Torchlight festival !! DAC - CreativeHealth Enfield /Enfield Council Year 5.

Meeting the lovely Friends of Broomfield Park this Summer.

Some inspirational leaders like the Lionesses Captain of England Football: Leah Williamson says “We are going to go out there and try our best, the most important thing for us to focus on then is enjoying it. The nerves are good..... We care so much about what we are doing but the level of excitement and the opportunity to go and play that game, only two teams get that and we’re one of them...... I wouldn’t waste that.”

Congratulations to our Euro Champions. I'd have to agree we have an opportunity to enjoy these moments now. As a dance company we also aim to have resilience, togetherness, and unwavering self-belief.

Keep updated on our social media channels as we have some excellent things to look forward to in the coming months.........

Take care and enjoy the rest of the Summer.

See you on the dancefloor, Jess