News on Our Arts Council England funding status
We received news today that we will sadly not remain part of the Arts Council’s National Portfolio Programme. We have been honoured to be part of this community since 2012 and have enjoyed the financial and practical support that this community brings over the last decade. It has never been a tremendous amount of core funding, £90,000 annually, in the context of the overall Arts Council budget, but it made a huge difference to us. We're now working on ways to plug that gap.
Songs For Babyn Yar at JW3 London, photo credit Ikin Yum
The last 12 months have been truly incredible for Dash Arts.
We have created and produced three commissions, each of which has entirely new material that I created as director with international playwrights, dramaturgs composers and designers:
Songs for Babyn Yar featuring 3 exceptional Ukrainian performers that we’ve premiered in the UK, Germany and Ukraine,
The Great Middlemarch Mystery with a cast of over 20 professional and non-professional performers set across 4 locations in central Coventry,
Dido’s Bar, developed in Finland and the UK with an international cast from Finland, France, Morocco and the UK, which toured across England to London, Manchester, Portsmouth, Leicester and Oxford.
We’ve also produced 12 digital podcasts alongside the productions and an accompanying programme of workshops, talks and events which we’ve ran with participants across the country.
We’re thrilled to have some lovely critical notices including:
"Immersive ingenuity.. that stretches the vocabulary of the stage. Suddenly theatre is firing on its newest cylinders” (Susannah Clapp in The Observer on The Great Middlemarch Mystery)
“Go and experience this moving, sensitively written, expertly directed and brilliantly-acted, epically relevant story whilst you can." (The Plays the Thing on Dido’s Bar)
Over the last year we’ve been privileged to reach over 2,200 live and 27,000 digital audiences, worked with 120 participants across the UK, and raised over £500,000 funds towards this work, from a variety of sources including Arts Council England, our producing partners, international sources, trusts and foundations and individual donors. While we have been lucky enough to take on 3 new members of staff this year, we remain a tiny charity with only 5 permanent members of staff (some might say we are punching significantly above our weight).
The Great Middlemarch Mystery, photo credit Ikin Yum
We’ve also enjoyed amazing feedback from our audiences:
“I loved the music, story, and immersive experience. Now more than ever, it is important to amplify cultural differences in a positive way whilst telling an important message about why people from refugee backgrounds seek sanctuary.”
- Dido’s Bar audience member
“Powerful performance by a really talented group. Thought provoking and charged.”
- Dido’s Bar audience member
“A wonderful and unique experience” - Middlemarch audience member
“Excellent, energetic, fun. Amazingly well-orchestrated” - Middlemarch audience member
Dido’s Bar at The Factory, London, photo credit Ali Wright
"Beautiful and heartbreaking. This is exactly how difficult histories should be told."
- Songs for Babyn Yar audience member
"Deeply moving and reflective… Complex humanity threaded through the show."
- Songs for Babyn Yar audience member
We are fully aware that the financial and political climate that surrounds us challenges Dash Arts and our peers, and that the Arts Council has had to make some incredibly tough decisions in where and how to award their limited funds. We send our congratulations and commiserations to our colleagues.
Later this month, we will be part of the Big Give Campaign raising funds for our Spring workshops, already part-funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, reflecting on the role of rhetoric in our political culture culminating in a state-of-the-nation theatre production, The Public House, and in January 2023, will work with the British Council and Ukrainian Institute in Kyiv, to present the extraordinary Crimea 5am a play telling the stories of the lives of 10 political prisoners, arrested by the Russian FSB and currently disappeared in prisons in occupied Crimea.
Our work must continue! Onwards.
- Josephine
A note from our Dash Arts Chair, Joachim Fleury:
"While we are disappointed with the news from the Arts Council, I am immensely proud of Dash Arts and all that we have achieved in partnership with ACE as a part of the National Portfolio Programme since 2012. I am particularly proud of what we have accomplished in the past year as we came out of lockdown and returned to live performances, including the three tremendous original productions which we have created and performed across England, Germany and in Ukraine, and our wide range of workshops, talks, podcasts and online events which have expanded our local, national and international audiences. We are determined to continue this excellent work, and the board and I are confident that Josephine and her team will ensure that Dash Arts continues to go from strength to strength, creating exceptional artistic experiences that bridge divides across art forms, cultures, languages and communities."
We would very much welcome the opportunity to chat to you if you are interested in finding ways to help us move forwards. Please do contact me on info@dasharts.org.uk
