Learning disability dance company saved by mystery donors

The UK’s first dance company for people with learning disabilities, Anjali, is to re-launch thanks to two large anonymous donations. Anjali closed due to financial issues in 2011. Yet a last-gasp fundraising campaign and gala evening saw the group receive two unexpected donations worth £70,000 – meaning Anjali can re-launch. Anjali – which means joining hands in Sanskrit – began life in 1993 in Banbury, Oxfordshire, as a series of contemporary dance workshops devised and led by Nicole Thomson, who is now the company’s artistic director. The aim was to demonstrate that a distinctive and powerful quality could emerge from