ENCOUNTERS is a two-day festival in Leeds exploring gender diversity through dance.

Yorkshire Dance is hosting the Pay As You Feel festival bringing together inspiring dance artists, local families and diverse audiences to share food, conversation and performance.

The ethos is inclusivity, accessibility and celebration, with an eclectic range of workshops and events to explore gender diversity.

The performance programme line-up includes Spanish artist Daniel Mariblanca with 71BODIES 1DANCE and a double bill of Marikiscrycrycry’s He’s Dead and Joseph Mercier’s Desperate Gestures.

71BODIES 1DANCE is an interdisciplinary performance, inspired by 71 personal experiences and testimonies from transgender individuals in Europe.

The performance gives visibility and awakes curiosity about the transgender community, and is accompanied by an exhibition of 15 portraits, as well as a workshop that invites audiences to reflect on the ideas in the piece.

Marikiscrycrycry (Malik Nashad Sharpe), artist-in-residence at Tate Britain/Tate Modern, presents a bold and innovative performance He’s Dead exploring multiple themes of Blackness and Queerness.

Joseph Mercier’s Desperate Gestures draws on queer subcultures and explores themes such as the culture of convenience, a fetish of the new and a commodification of the now.

There will be a wide variety of workshops and talks during the festival including The Joy of Moving in which participants playfully re-connect with their bodies, and a Voguing workshop.

Visit yorkshiredance.com for further information.