Choreographer Ben Wright was invited to be part of a government initiative of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation to launch a special arts program to develop and support contemporary culture in smaller Russian cities. In light of recent violent suppression of the rights of the LGBT community and the passing of an […]
Most small scale dance companies will try very hard to keep things simple, what with tight budgets, smaller venues and limited resources. Not so for Tom Dale Company who are about to embark on a stint at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with ‘Refugees of the Septic Heart’. The show feature 6 dancers, almost as many […]
Anybody who has received funding from Arts Council England, or any other type of funding for that matter, will know that numbers are everything. Especially when it comes to audience numbers for the performing arts. Numbers can make or break your company because if they aren’t high enough, or the right kind of numbers, then […]
Two weeks ago Arts Council England contacted us via Twitter to ask if we would like to write a “blog post” for them. To be honest it did take a while for that request to get past our “WTF” filter. The Big Bad was asking TheLab™ to write something that they would publish with our […]
Last week the much anticipated, by some at least, televised “debate” in the House of Commons (the UK’s legislative body) about the wide world of culture rapidly descended into the “not worth bothering with” territory that we, here in TheLab™, had predicted. It’s hard to determine what was more depressing about the whole affair. Was […]
On Friday last week the announcement was made by the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) that Arts Council England (ACE) would, in all probability, receive a 5% cut to their funding for the year 2015/2016. The announcement was a prelude to the government’s “spending review” that will be announced in full on June […]
The rumours are swirling, or at least staggering about like an asthmatic mouse, that the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) is a goner if the up and coming Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) has anything to do with it. Lest you be unfamiliar with the DCMS they are the government department responsible for funding […]
We have written often, here in TheLab™, about the fact that when the self appointed upper echelons of the arts complain about funding they often come across as self-serving, pompous buffoons. The reason they sound like self-serving, pompous buffoons is because, more often than not, they are self-serving, pompous buffoons. Step forward Nicholas Serota, Chief […]
When last we saw bgroup they were performing their own curious mix of dance and theatre with ‘The Lessening of Difference’ that all ended with a massive snowball fight. This time the company are on stage with a very different, although no less curious, work called ‘Just As We Are’. In many way the work, […]
A couple of weeks ago a minor storm erupted when an audition notice for Ace Dance and Music, based in Birmingham, was released that stated the company would charge dancers £20 each for attending. Charging for auditions (or in this case an audition workshop) is generally not accepted practice in this country or any other. […]