July draws to a wet and blustery conclusion, and we are resigned to a summer without the festivals, the shows and the tours that normally brighten our year. For many this has profound effects as projects and income streams dry up. But as lockdown restriction slowly ease, there are also the first tentative steps to a restart, as individuals and organisations work out how to restart classes, rehearsals and performances.
But in our rush to restart, maybe it is also time to take pause, and to work out how to rebuild better. How do we address the issues around inequalities that this crisis has exposed: around race, gender, class, finances, power structures, between freelancers and the employed? How do we make our work not only safe but also more connected, more compassionate, and more creative? There may not be fully fledged answers, but the conversations are inspiring, provoking and urgent.
Scottish Government: Guidance for Creative Studios and Shared Workspaces
Earlier this month, the Scottish Government produced guidance for the creative industries, in particular for providers and users of creative studios in Scotland, in safer working during the coronavirus pandemic.
The guidance includes information on assessing risk, planning, support and training.
It is with great sadness that we announce that Modo will permanently close its doors in October. Modo is very proud of all their achievements and of all their young people.
It has been a really difficult decision for the company to make. Despite the clear need and increasing demand for their activities it is clear that Modo's vision for a fit for purpose and creative youth provision in Peterhead does not have the support it needs in order to be fulfilled.
UK Government £1.57 billion investment to protect Britain’s world-class cultural, arts
and heritage institutions
Thousands of organisations across a range of sectors including the performing arts and theatres, heritage, palaces, museums, galleries, live music and independent cinemas will be able to access emergency grants and loans.
The money will go to cultural and heritage organisations across the country hit by the pandemic. It will help them stay afloat while their doors are closed. Funding to restart paused projects will also help support employment, including freelancers working in these sectors.
Many of Britain’s cultural and heritage institutions have already received financial assistance including loans, business rate holidays and participation in the coronavirus job retention scheme. More than 350,000 people in the recreation and leisure sector have been furloughed since the pandemic began.
This new package will be available across the country.
CircusTalk: Forget Buildings – Circus Tents are Ideal for Covid-Safe Shows
Big tops are being built up across the UK. With sidewalls raised and seats spaced out, tented circuses are resuming summer tours. Heavy theatre doors, meanwhile, remain shut. But there’s a simple solution to opening up with socially distanced productions. Theatres should take to tents.
One has already had the imagination to move out. Norwich Theatre has teamed up with Norwich-based Lost in Translation circus to move its productions under canvas. Theatre and circus are sharing the programming. For six weeks over the summer, Lost in Translation’s Marybelle tent won’t only stage juggling, acrobatics and world-class Korean cradle, but also drama designed for the Norwich Playhouse stage.
If only more theatres looked beyond their buildings, they’d find the post-Covid-19 world a lot less worrying. Yet every day we read about a new proposed seating plan or air-filtering system being trialled in an Edwardian playhouse to enable safe, socially distanced theatre in a building designed for the opposite.
OutdoorArtsUK have published their latest links for resources related to the Covid-19 pandemic; this is, of course, an evolving situation, so we will keep it up to date, although some of the links may be redundant at any given moment.
Do you have anything to add? A useful resource to share with the sector? An example of a risk assessment? Let them know: resources@outdoorartsuk.org
While there is no firm date for the return of events in Scotland, the Scottish Government’s route map to recovery, outlines the possibility of events being staged in some form in phases three and four.
To help event organisers make preparations for their return to work and to plan for what their events will look like in a post COVID-19 world, Visit Scotland have collated some specific resources to consider including health and safety advice, Government guidance and key considerations.
Freelancers Make Theatre Work is an inclusive community for the 200,000+ self-employed and freelance workers from all areas of theatre, opera, dance and live performance, who make up 70% of the UK theatre workforce.
The community acts as a platform to collect the opinions and concerns of the freelance theatre workforce with the commitment to express them to theatre managements, production companies, industry bodies and government.
The website also has resources of information for the freelance theatre workforce that welcomes contributions from organisations and individuals to share the conversations going on behind closed doors.
American Circus Educators: Covid-19 Resources for Circus Organisations
The purpose of ACE’s COVID-19 Response Guide is to help circus arts education organisations think through decision making about resuming, adapting, reducing, or pausing circus arts educational programming in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Making decisions about operations with these challenges in place is difficult, as is balancing the safety and business impacts of those decisions.
There are no strategies that will work for all organisations, as circus arts education programs are very diverse, covering a wide range of activities and participants. Every circus arts education organisation must do its own assessment and planning, customised to specific circumstances and factors. ACE will continue to research and collect information from trusted sources to share with the community.
CircusTalk: Prevention of Covid in Circus training
As the spread of Covid-19 increases the circus industry, like every industry, is sure to be deeply affected. At the moment, the economic effect on the world and our fellow arts communities remains opaque, but the priority is identifying what we can and should be doing as a worldwide community to minimise the spread of the virus itself,
and to decrease the impact on human health. Organisations around the world are scrambling to outline their policies, and circus organisations are among them. Sharing and improving upon this information is one step we can all take.
New England Centre for Circus Arts: Covid-19 Information and Policies
NECCA have recently produced a number of documents on phased reopenings of training spaces and information on safety policies and procedures for their staff and students to follow to reduce the risk and spread of Covid-19.
These policies can be used to inform your own practice or as an indication as to what other circus organisations are doing as they begin to re-open.
Creative Scotland Open Fund: Sustaining Creative Development
Creative Scotland is committed to ensuring that people are supported to develop excellence and experimentation in a wide range of arts and creative activity, reflecting Scotland’s diverse and dynamic cultures.
Creative Scotland have launched their Open Fund in a difficult context. The disruption of COVID-19 is a situation without precedent. The creative sector is facing significant challenge and Creative Scotland understand that you will be considering the impact of this emergency and its after-effects on what you do.
You may be thinking about new ways of working. If you aim to reach people with your work in performance spaces, for example, you may be looking at new ways to achieve this. You may be looking at ways to stabilise your existing activity. You may be reimagining what you do, and as part of this process, you may wish to take creative risks.
This fund is designed to support you to sustain your practice in a changing world. We are asking you to tell us what you want to do, and how it will help you and/or others in the months and years to come.
National Centre for Circus Arts: Foundation Degree Ensemble 2020 - NOISE. (To learn to hear you) / SILENCE. (My mind is a tunnel)
Director Neus Gil Cortes and the FD2 students at the National Centre for Circus Arts have created two pieces of contrasting work:
NOISE. (To learn to hear you)
SILENCE. (My mind is a tunnel)
An exploration of how noise and silence influence us on a physical and emotional level: our heart rate, the rhythm of our breath, our relationship to ourselves and others.
Gandini Juggling: Twenty Twenty
Twenty Twenty was created to mark the company’s 20th anniversary in 2012 and appropriately features 20 performers.
Twenty Twenty was created in just over two weeks, combining some pre-existing with new work: a remarkable achievement that shows how well these accomplished artists work together.
This isn’t just dexterity and timing; it is fused with dance, changes of pace and of atmosphere, humour, sometimes a solo or a duet emerges from the group to display particular artistry.
Snow Show is a universal and timeless theatrical poetic spectacle which has enchanted and empowered the imagination of audiences and critics since 1993 in dozens of countries, hundreds of cities with multiple thousand performances resulting in millions of spectators from all nationalities, genders, beliefs, types and ages. It is a genre of its own and remains as spontaneous and magical as on the first day it was performed, systematically catapulting adults back in childhood.
Slava's theatre is known to grow out of the fabric of dreams and fairy tales. Over the years, he has developed and mastered a tragic, metaphysical art of clowning by digging deep into tragicomedy to understand to what extent drama can be combined with laughter in a most captivating way.
Have you ever wanted to explore ways of sharing your practice, considered working with community groups/schools, or thought that delivering workshops would be a great extra income stream?
Then welcome to The Changing Rooms, a free series of workshops for artists, designed to equip you with skills, techniques and practical tips for developing and running your own workshops.
In these open, supportive and collaborative sessions you will cover everything from working with time and budget constraints to exploring diverse and different forms of teaching and learning. Designed to adapt to suit your needs, this series will support your journey as you seek out opportunities to deliver your own workshops.
Before launching in-person experiences again, event creators are considering health and safety risks for their event.
This is a resource for you when determining what risks are present and how to address them.
This Playbook will help you:
Understand the risks of COVID-19 transmission at events and your role in identifying and managing those risks;
Identify potential transmission risks that may affect your event, understand opportunities to effectively manage those risks, and make informed decisions about risk acceptance;
Create a pre-event safety checklist addressing COVID-19 risks;
Communicate your safety policies and procedures to staff and attendees, including their critical role and responsibility in having a safe event.
Wellbeing in Making Theatre: Deepening practice for D/deaf and disabled directors / theatre makers
Ramps on the Moon and RTYDS are working in partnership to provide D/deaf and disabled directors and theatre makers with the opportunity to expand their craft and networks.
Director Rachel Bagshaw will be leading a series of six sessions over Zoom drawing on her expertise both as a director and coach and inviting other artists to share their craft and knowledge.
The sessions will explore:
Wellbeing specifically for D/deaf and disabled artists
Wellbeing within the rehearsal room. Exploring wellbeing practice as part of making work and how it can enable more creative freedom for the whole team.
How Rachel’s process has developed to embrace the wellbeing of everyone in the room, and use some practical examples of how she works.
Craft of making theatre from the perspective of the director
The sessions will start from Wednesday 29 July and run weekly for eight weeks (with a one-week break in August)
The Creative Mentoring programme is led by the Artist Development Team, and supports artists working in theatre, live performance and multidisciplinary projects, at any stage of their career. Facciocose offer:
Guidance in developing your projects.
Assistance with undertaking theoretical and practical researches.
Tramway + The Work Room: Outdoor Dance Commissions
Deadline: 31st July
The Work Room and Tramway are collaborating once again, building on the artist-led Moving Out projects they supported in 2019 and responding to the particular circumstances we are now in. Dance North and Citymoves are joining in with this venture in 2020.
With venues currently closed, and measures of social distancing likely to be part of daily life for the foreseeable futures, The Work Room and Tramway are seeking to work with dance artists to expand their choreographic practice through adapting work for outdoor contexts and public sites.
This year, in response to our changed environment and circumstances, they are turning this focus to artists’ own neighbourhoods – wherever this is throughout Scotland.
The project is interested in ideas from dance artists that will enable them to consider their choreographic practice in response to their own neighbourhood. They envisage that these projects will culminate in performances or interventions in outdoor, public spaces as we begin to emerge from lockdown. Through this collaboration we are aiming to:
Enable choreographers to explore adapting their practice, including existing work, for outdoors and public spaces;
Enable choreographers to connect with their local neighbourhoods and the communities around them – wherever they live in Scotland.
The selected artists will receive support from staff in the organisations (Tramway, Citymoves, Dance North & The Work Room) in realising the projects.
The Drill House, based in Great Yarmouth, UK, is a national centre, dedicated to the development of circus and outdoor arts.
As a sector leading organisation and NPO, SeaChange Arts delivers outstanding opportunities for artists through supporting, hosting and delivering a variety of circus and outdoor arts projects, events, small commissions and residencies.
As the world begins to recover from the recent pandemic, their focus for the next 12 months is now set on supporting artists and the sector during these difficult times through creation residencies – providing opportunities for artists to develop and create new work, access to rehearsal or training space.
The Drill House are encouraging artists to get back to creation to ensure there is a body of work readily available to tour once the festival and arts industry recuperates.
Applications are now open; they are interested in artists that work in outdoor arts and circus, but also those that work in other disciplines who are keen to work collaboratively with or extend their practice into these art forms. In the first instance they are considering applications from solo artists, duos or small companies already working in their own bubble, within government guidelines.
Imaginate: Children's Festival 2021
commission and call-out
Deadline: 5pm on the 31st July
Imaginate are currently seeking new performance ideas from Scottish based artist/s or companies for the next edition of the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival 26 May – 6 June 2021.
The 2021 Children’s Festival will go ahead, in a different form to than the usual mode of delivery, presented in school buildings, outdoor spaces and with some sort of social distancing.
Call for Entries Jerwood Art Fund Makers Open 2021
Deadline: 5pm on the 26th August
Jerwood Art Fund Makers Open 2021 is a major award for five early-career UK-based artists and makers to develop and present ambitious new works using all forms of making and material experimentation.
This eighth edition launches a new collaboration with the Art Fund and partnership with Aberdeen Art Gallery, who will host the exhibition of the new commissions in autumn 2022.
The award offers a supported, high-profile national platform for artists and makers who are between one and ten years of beginning their professional artistic practice to take risks at a pivotal moment in their careers. It seeks to raise the profile and visibility of making processes within the visual arts and create a space for critical dialogue between the craft and visual arts sectors.
The CircusWork Un-Conference is a coming together of youth circus trainers, managers, researchers, fundraisers, educators, artists and advocates. Over July and August we will be learning, listening, debating, researching and inspiring each other to find a way forward in a post-covid world.
CircusWorks have pulled together a global team of experts to guide us through. With a choice of 8 sessions to attend over 2 hours every week there's something to engage all who are interested in the future of circus.
Tickets are limited to a maximum of 100 per session.
Moving On - Strategies, Designing and Creating Work
5th August
July's Moving Out Symposium was an inspirational event. 155 people attended, including 26 presenters and the future of outdoor arts in the wake of COVID-19 was discussed.
The Zoom session videos of the symposium have now been collated, edited and published online. You can view all the sessions, including the breakout sessions here.
Many participants requested the opportunity to carry on the discussion with some of our speakers. Martin Danziger and R.M. Sánchez-Camus kindly answered the call and have arranged two concurrent 60 minute online sessions to continue the conversation on 5th August.
You are invited to join the discussions. Places are limited but you can register your place for one or both sessions through Eventbrite.
Session 1
2pm - Designing work - Creating work in direct response to the COVID-19 crisis with Martin Danziger.
Martin Danziger will invite discussion around the impact COVID-19 has had on the practice of artists and the approach artists have taken to developing work in direct response to COVID-19.
Session 2
3.30pm - Publicly engaged work - Strategies to work with the public whilst observing social distancing with R.M. Sánchez-Camus.
R.M. Sánchez-Camus (Marcelo) will be presenting some of his response work created during the Covid emergency and chairing a conversation that explores the tension in practices that are rooted in participation during a period of pandemic lockdown. Together with artists interested in and exploring audience participation, we will explore the ways we continue to work and develop, how to navigate online spaces and bring our art to the public, and consider the importance of care and art in a post-pandemic world of fear.
When the world is no longer your stage... 30 acrobats physicalize the shared exhaustion, frustration and complications of living within drastically limited space; creating absurdity and beauty while stuck on their sofas.
A short film providing a snapshot of the extraordinary spring of 2020 and how differently we all dealt with it, and inviting viewers to share their own experiences from the comfort of their sofas...
Mimbre is an acrobatic theatre company fusing acrobatics, dance and humour to create visual poetry in unconventional spaces.
Filmed in Lockdown is a series of new works of literary, musical, visual, and performance arts, commissioned for Culture in Quarantine by Arts Council England and BBC Arts.
Following the announcement that the Edinburgh Festival Fringe will not be going ahead as planned in 2020, the Fringe Society has unveiled alternative digital plans taking place this summer, complementing a variety of activities planned by Fringe artists and venues.
Under hugely difficult circumstances, creatives from across the Fringe landscape will be bringing versions of their work to life digitally, many for the very first time. From live streamed performances to nostalgic throwbacks and community-focused events and support sessions, the spirit of the Fringe will live on in the work of thousands of Fringe artists and venues, and the Fringe Society will help audiences navigate them through a central listings service.
Alongside this, the Fringe Society will be running a series of digital activities, including virtual shows, a festival-wide crowdfunding campaign, artist-facing workshops, a new online arts industry platform and a virtual Fringe Central, so there are still plenty of ways to #MakeYourFringe in 2020.
The SOfa Fest brings you something special – from your own sofa. The clue’s in the title, folks!
This year, due to the current pandemic, the hugely popular SO Festival, featuring live entertainment and events from across Europe, had to be postponed however the organisers have worked their magic and this year, the SOfa Fest has been born! A host of team members, pencils, paper and a sizeable dollop of artistic licence gave the event a name change but everything else that you know, and love will remain the same – but from your sofa of course!
The standard of this year’s contributors remains incredibly high. An eclectic mix of wonderful projects have been selected to delight you on Saturday 1st August. Events will take place throughout the day with more details on the individual projects to follow soon.
The organisers are looking forward to a hugely successful event which will still showcase the best talent from across the county!
This year audiences will be in for a taste of SIRF 2020, but from the comfort of their own homes. Despite not being able to deliver the festival on Stockton High Street, SIRF are bringing to you a new way to experience the joy of SIRF.
SIRF at Home, is a new, virtual way to connect and share the joy and vibrancy of SIRF, wherever you are. You will still be able to experience all of the things you love about SIRF, only this year it’s coming to you in a virtual way.
World class performances that were planned for 2020 will now be delivered to you digitally over the SIRF website and social media channels and we will also be showing archive footage of classic SIRF moments. There will also be lots of ways for you to get involved.
Greenwich + Dockland International Festival (GDIF)
28th August - 12th September
GDIF 2020 will incorporate a programme of uplifting installations and outdoor arts presented locally on people’s doorsteps, celebrating local places and togetherness following a summer of isolation.
Installations running over several days celebrating the NHS, togetherness, and the environment will ensure that audiences can visit at staggered times with plenty of space for social distancing. A new initiative, entitled On Your Doorstep, will bring a carefully curated programme of family-friendly circus and street theatre to the heart of communities in Greenwich, Greenwich Peninsula, Woolwich Common Estate, Woolwich Arsenal, Thamesmead, Plumstead, and Eltham.
The programme will also include exciting larger-scale outdoor theatre pieces, with reduced capacities and ticketed entry to ensure that the festival experience is a safe and enjoyable one for everyone.
Tickets will be available for general booking from Thursday 6 August 2020 at 12 noon.
Call Out to Artists and Makers, groups and organisations involved with Circus, Street Arts, Physical Theatre - let us and others know about your work. Take your place in Articulation’s Directory on the Website by sending your information to info@articulationarts.org
