Caring to dance

Emma Silke-French has dedicated her life to dance, from winning national championships to leading Nelson’s beloved charity event, NBS Dancing for a Cause. What began as a small local fundraiser has grown into an unstoppable phenomenon, raising over a million dollars for Nelson Tasman Hospice. With the event expanding to two nights this year, Emma reflects on its remarkable journey and the community that keeps it moving.

Words: Alistair Hughes

Those of us of a certain age might recall baby-faced Kevin Bacon’s impassioned defence of dance in the cheesily fun 1984 film Footloose. Facing down a puritanical council opposed to the upcoming school prom, he reminds them that the book of Ecclesiastes assures us there is a time for every purpose under heaven, including a time to dance. “To celebrate life. That’s the way it was in the beginning, the way it’s always been and that’s the way it should be now.”

Emma Silke-French has never needed any convincing. A great part of her life has been spent on dance floors, culminating in becoming the project manager for Nelson’s hugely popular biennial charity extravaganza: Dancing for a Cause.

“I have been competing in ballroom dancing since I was six years old,” she laughs. “I've travelled all over the world and represented my country three times, and all those exciting things.”

It is a very self-effacing summary of a long and significant career which began at the Halifax Street dance studio of Gaile French in the early 1980s. The matching surnames are no coincidence as Gaile’s son Derryn became not just Emma’s dance partner, but her life partner as well.

She went on to win several junior national awards in ballroom and Latin dance, entering the World Youth Championships at 17. On meeting Derryn, the couple danced professionally for several years, becoming New Zealand champions before passing on their own passion and expertise by training local dancers to a top competition level.

But in many ways, Emma’s most satisfying, and possibly challenging, turn around the ballroom floor was yet to come.

“I was working at the BNZ in 2017 when a lady by the name of Sally Thomas contacted me to get involved in this hare-brained idea of teaching some locals how to do some ballroom dancing,” she recalls.

A small, local performing arts group which Sally’s daughter was a member of had come up with the idea of a non-professional, volunteer dance competition for fundraising, so Emma agreed to come on board and lend her skills and experience to bring the contestants up to the required form.

“It was going to be held in a small school hall,” Emma laughs, “and we hoped maybe we would get four or five people well-known in our community to come and participate.”

As sometimes happens, the event seemed to take on a life of its own as more and more notable names became involved, including Victory Boxing founder and programme director Paul Hampton, then-Nelson Mayor Rachel Reese and future MP Rachel Boyack.

“These three people were very well known, and it started to feel like maybe this was becoming a little bit bigger than just a show in a school hall. So we wanted to find a charity that we could also give some of the money to, because it had become really clear that what we were going to raise was more than expected.”

And just like that, Emma’s commitment had begun to grow as she and the other organisers cast around for a suitable charity to donate to.

“Originally Dancing for a Cause was set up to give to a different charity each time. But people had some really beautiful hospice stories. If you've had interactions with hospice, you know how important it is, and therefore you're prepared to help.”

At this time, Nelson Tasman Hospice was still based in Manuka Street and were trying to build their own much-needed premises.

“We thought that sounded like a great idea to support,” continues Emma. “And once that decision was made, there was no looking back.”

The venue was soon upgraded to the Trafalgar Centre and in Emma’s words, Dancing for a Cause has become unstoppable.

That initial show in May 2018 completely sold out and raised $111,000 for Nelson Tasman Hospice, with local breast surgeon Ros Pochin and her partner Anthony Hewson winning the first championship with their samba. Momentum grew as NBS became a corporate sponsor for the hospice, and for Dancing for a Causeitself.

Contestants not only throw themselves into learning routines to be performed before a huge local audience, but also pledge to fundraise while they do so.

“Ryan Edwards, (winner with dance partner Hazel Black of NBS Dancing for a Cause 2023 and Sport Tasman’s active recreation lead) always makes fun of me by pointing out: ‘you've got this amazing system where you put on an event and then send 10 people out to fundraise on behalf of it’. And it’s true,” says Emma, not without a touch of pride.

Contestant and Sport Tasman CEO Ed Shuttleworth famously ran 210km from Farewell Spit to the hospice in Stoke earlier this year to raise money for the event. Even with his astonishing fitness, he was well aware he’d need some recovery time prior to continuing his dance training.

“We had a couple of slow weeks there,” confirms Emma, “but we scheduled that into our preparation because it’s no small task what he achieved. But Ed's going ‘great guns’ now and he will be raring to go on the big night.”

But surely it can’t be an easy task to persuade non-dancers to commit to a competitive and very public performance on this kind of scale?

“It used to be,” she admits. “I’d love to pull up some of the emails from the first time – I was reduced to begging! But as it’s gotten bigger, people have come to us. We have ten slots for five male and five female entrants, and this time around, we had nearly 40 female applicants.”

It is gratifying, but she confesses that this comes with its own problems.

“Now you've got all these people wanting to put their hands up to help us by doing this beautiful thing, but we have to turn them away. We only hope that they still will want to try again next time.”

Dancing for a Cause is trying something new this year and will be taking place over two nights on 16 and 17 of May. This is partially because not only has the number of entry applicants grown, but so has the size of the audience.

“Nelsonians love coming to Dancing for a Cause, but we've only ever had 45-50 tables, and they generally sell out at our launch event (in October of the previous year),” laments Emma. “So we were in danger of really annoying and discouraging people who would ring two months early asking if they could get a table, only to find that they’d already gone.”

Of course, market forces have a part to play as well. “As it grows we’ve found ourselves incurring massive costs that we've never come across before. And as a result, running it over one night limits how much we can actually raise for the event. So for us to be able to not only cover our costs, but make it feasible for the future, extending across two nights really was our only option.”

It sounds as if eager audiences certainly won’t be disappointed, but has the enthusiasm for the event been reflected in fundraising this year?

“Our ten contestants have already raised $300,000. These guys go out into the community to build a house for hospice, or run 210 km, or put on a quiz evening… all of these amazing things, and it all comes into the kitty that is Dancing for a Cause.”

Everything appears to be going smoothly, but with the increased scale this year, does Emma have any particular concerns?

“I have no worries about the dances and the contestants. They're doing beautifully, right on target, and they'll look amazing. What I'm finding a bit of a struggle is the sheer amount of logistics needed for a two-night event.”

But Emma remains full of enthusiasm, always bolstered by the fact that Dancing for a Cause has raised one million dollars since its inception seven years ago. And teaching will always be her passion.

“You don’t put your hand up to be a contestant unless you're simply an amazing person. I’m sharing my passion with some beautiful human beings, and it’s just a fun journey to take them on. It’s what I love doing and for some dancers, where else in your life do you get to learn something brand new in your middle age?”

As Footloose tells us, there is a time to dance and for this year’s Dancing for a Cause contestants it is fast approaching. Emma has stated in the past that the event could never be annual because “the organisers would already be behind before they’d even finished the current show,” but she envisages plenty of other ways to continue to enhance and develop this now unmissable event.

“I am always looking to the future. I think there's a massive amount of growth that Dancing for a Cause can still achieve, and I definitely think we'll be back in two years’ time. There are actually some really exciting things planned for the future.”