Newcastle’s Kelly-Abbott Dance Theatre is looking to crowdfund its community work on a national tour of its production Launch Day, a celebration of the shipbuilding heritage of the North East, which takes its inspiration from the paintings of Alexander Millar.
Millar grew up in the '60s in a small mining community in industrial Scotland between Irvine and Kilmarnock and the people he saw and knew there provided—and still provide—him with his artistic inspiration. Now he lives in Newcastle.
Launch Day, which has a soundtrack featuring music by Mark Knopfler and Irish composer Breifne Holohan, brings his working class figures—the “Gadgies”—to life.
“This is our most ambitious cross-art form project to date,” says Kristin Kelly-Abbott, the company’s choreographer and artistic director, “and we’d love to bring this work into the communities it is inspired from, and involve those people in this work.
“Every penny we raise will support the delivery of workshops across the entire tour, and allow us to create a community cast to feature in our show. As well as this, it also facilitates us to work with primary and secondary schools to create curtain raisers (opening community works) for the shows on the tour.”
You can find the funding page on the Crowdfunder web site. All donation givers will be entered into a prize draw with a chance to win an original sketch from the artist Alexander Millar worth £2,500, and there are other rewards available.
The tour opens at the Queen’s Hall Arts Centre in Hexham on 14 February before going on to The Key Theatre Peterborough (21 February), Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, Republic of Ireland (23 February), Circomedia, Bristol (2 March), Brewery Arts Centre, Kendall (14 March), Bridport Arts Centre (16 March), Bishop Auckland Town Hall (24 March), Customs House, South Shields (28 March) and Northern Stage, Newcastle (29 May).