Connection is the central motive of this website.
From the initial conversations we had in central London, back in October, it was clear to Ieva and myself that building a community had to be at the center of any online experiment.
That was the reason we started with a forum, a place to support and expand the conversations we were having in live events. We launched it as a safe, private space on the internet.
When live events were suspended due to the pandemic, that made the need for an online presence even stronger.
We created this blog to support a growing community and promote awareness around these conversations where dance inspires personal growth.
Dancing with tech
The forum is built on an application called Discourse, a mature technology that offers the end user rich possibilities for interaction and engagement.
The application is fully integrated with WordPress and that’s the key reason that led us to choose WordPress as our core platform for content creation.
My original plan was to design something entirely from scratch, as I’ve done in previous web projects. However, when I discovered the new WordPress theme Twenty Twenty, I fell in love.
I’ve been making my own design choices with Dance in Conversation personality, custom colours and typography, but keeping in place what I like about the default WordPress styles.
It enables writers or video creators to play with the design and even make custom layouts, all within the constraints we are putting in place to keep brand consistency and harmony on the whole site.
Your voice
Creating a website requires constant listening and, as a developer, I make decisions based on feedback as much as possible, and try to adapt the project to the community needs.
The vision for the blog is to publicly share our insights, thoughts, ideas and stories that finds us. And we want to offer this space to the community, so that members, keen to share a story, can use the blog and publish it.
Do keep in mind that this is just the initial version, so it will be rough around the edges and still very much a work in progress.
What would you like to see in the blog? How do you think it can be improved?
And if you find any issues, please let us know in the comments!
