2020: Our highlights
Hello and a Happy New Year from Dash Arts!
2020 was a completely different year to the one we all expected, but here at Dash we learned a lot, discovering new ways of connecting with our audiences and working with awe-inspiring artists from across the world.
in 2020 at Dash we:
Produced a brand new podcast with 16 episodes, with guests including Dutch-Curaçaoan artist Felix de Rooy, twice Booker-nominated author Chigozie Obiama, chef and writer Olia Hercules and more.
Hosted our first ever major virtual event, celebrating the 85th birthday of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt.
Began work on three new Dash Arts productions
Hosted 4 live events before the pandemic hit: Europeans: Dora Maar, Europeans: Günter Grass, George Eliot’s Radicals and Art vs Artivism .
Raised over £7,000 in donations from kind donors and generous supporters in online fundraising campaigns including The Big Give.
We want to give a huge thanks to our audiences and listeners new and old, who continued to join us in discovering and celebrating artists and movements that bridge the divides between art-forms, cultures, languages and communities.
An extra special thank you to the artists and speakers who were a part of our 2020 programme and to our partners The Estonian Embassy in London, the Arvo Pärt Centre, Goethe-Institut London, Royal Holloway University of London, Warwick Arts Centre, Rich Mix London, Poet in the City, The Finnish Institute, Polish Cultural Institute and Institut Français.
Find out more about our highlights from the year below…
Dash Arts Podcast
We’ve wanted to launch a podcast for some time, but given the frequency of our live events, residences and productions, it was hard to imagine where we were going to find the time. Even last January, it was still a pipe dream.
When the lockdown kicked in and our live events were cancelled in March, it felt like the perfect opportunity to start a project that could offer inspiration and hope amongst the swathes of bad news.
With zero experience but a lot of enthusiasm, we began to pull together new episodes. This began with turning past and planned live cafés into episodes, such as our podcast on Tadeusz Kantor, but later took on a format of its own, allowing us to connect with artists and bring people together in a way we might have not been able to in-person.
In our October episode Felix de Rooy: Art in the face of Empire, we were able to talk to the man himself, along with international artists and writers who paid him tribute. In Django Reinhardt: Music, Myth and Reality, we brought together musicians from across the world, who created brand new music just for our podcast that had passed between home studios in the UK, Belgium, New Orleans, Milan and Paris. In our recent episode Second Hand Memory, we were able to speak to artists from Nigeria, Yugoslavia, Argentina, Russia, the UK, and the USA about inherited trauma, with a truly global perspective.
This wonderful new part of our programme wouldn’t have been possible without the generosity and support of our guests, who shared their work, insights and lives with us to create a (now with 5 stars on iTunes) podcast that has had more than 2,500 downloads.
Our first ever Digital Dash Café
In October 2020 we hosted our first ever digital dash café, Europeans: Arvo Pärt, a virtual mini-concert from pianist Sophia Rahman and violinist Andres Kaljuste, with discussion from both musicians and son of the composer, Michael Pärt, which marked Arvo Pärt’s 85th birthday year.
The concert was filmed especially for us in the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia, with the discussion held live over Zoom, hosted by Dash Arts Artistic Director Josephine Burton in London, with the musicians in Estonia.
Our first time hosting a virtual dash café, we were nervous and delighted to be joined by almost 300 screens from 23 countries. A truly digital feat, it was incredible to be able to bring a concert from world-class musicians in the beautiful setting of the Arvo Pärt Centre to homes worldwide to celebrate the composer’s life and work.
Find out more here
3 new productions are underway…
Despite the restrictions of the pandemic, we have begun research and development work on three brand-new immersive and site-specific productions at Dash Arts this year.
This year, we have been lucky enough to conduct research and development workshops at Scotland’s Cove Park, Goethe Institute London and Warwick Arts Centre.
Keep your eyes peeled for more updates on this work…
We raised over £7,000 in online donations!
Through our fundraising campaign in October and The Big Give in December we raised over £6,000 to continue our programme and host participatory workshops for one of our productions in development.
2020 was a difficult year for the arts, but your generosity has allowed us to continue to make work that engages hard-to-reach communities, platforms new and emerging artists and offer work to artists both locally and internationally.
A huge thank you to everyone who donated, we were overwhelmed by your support and kindness.
What’s next at Dash Arts for 2021…
As we head into the New Year, we’ll be continuing our programme of podcasts, digital events and productions, with the hope of returning to our live programme as soon as possible.
We greatly missed seeing audiences in person in 2020, but loved connecting and meeting more of you in the digital realm.
Thank you again to our audiences, team and collaborators who made it all happen. Here’s to 2021!