KATHERINE MACALISTER finds out what’s in store in the sixth annual Dancin’ Oxford extravaganza.

It’s back, and bigger and better than ever before. Dancin’ Oxford is celebrating it’s sixth year in what has now become a showcase annual event for Oxford, boasting some of the best dance around, a huge arena of free events, a massive selection of things to do and see for under a fiver, as well as stuff for beginners and all the family.

And to get you on board, the main highlights of the festival are both free events – the UK premier of an aerial dance performed high over Oxford Castle coming all the way from France, and secondly the Digital Dance Trail which can be seen in locations around the city centre at any time of day or night, a first for the country.

Just download the 4Step app, inset, from the iTunes App Store or Android Marketplace, and you can experience compelling and stunning dance at locations across the city, at any time from Saturday.

So whether you’re five or 95, an experienced dancer or a newcomer, there is plenty on offer to whet your appetite and with more than 30 events to choose from you’ll be spoilt for choice. And who better to tell us all about it than Claire Thompson, The Guide’s dance columnist and Dancin’ Oxford organiser.

“We have internationally-renowned choreographer Matthew Bourne giving an insight into dance, and his work, at the Oxford Playhouse. Also, there are plenty of free events to encourage people to come and try, without having to spend any money. So there is a wonderfully varied and high quality programme with so many different opportunities to both see dance and actively participate in it,” she adds.

“Because the key aim of the festival then, and now, is to celebrate dance in Oxford and to make dance more accessible to everyone – whether as a complete beginner, or dance enthusiast,” she says, “and Oxford is very fortunate, because dance festivals on this scale are very few and far between.

“Which is why the festival engages year on year with people who are new to dance, especially with the free outdoor dance events which provide a great opportunity for many, people to enjoy dance.”

A year in the making, the dance programme for 2012 is by far the most ambitious yet. So what is Claire most looking forward to? “Well, the large-scale outdoor aerial performance at Oxford Castle, the all-new free Digital Dance Trail, and events specifically for families and under-fives with the Baby Boogie and the Intergen-erational Dance Day,” she says.

“But I'm looking forward to the whole festival programme – it’s so full and so varied, it’s hard to pick out just a few events.

Dancin’ Oxford 2012 looks set then to become one of the city’s most anticipated festivals, and unlike many celebrations of the arts, this is a carousel designed to carry even the most reticent and awkward of wannabe dancers along with it. * For more information on Dancin’ Oxford 2012 see dancinoxford.co.uk or the festival brochure.