Greenwich Dance has entered redundancy consultation with all staff ahead of its forthcoming closure on the 31 December 2023.
The Board’s decision to wind down the company follows the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s decision in January to remove its longstanding Voluntary and Community Sector funding and an unsuccessful National Portfolio Organisation application to Arts Council England in 2022. Nine Arts Council England National Lottery Project Fund applications have also been rejected.
Despite success in attracting funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, City Bridge Foundation, Garfield Weston Foundation and Esmèe Fairbairn Foundation and a successful community crowdfunder raising £10,000 towards space hire for its Dance for Wellbeing class programme, without support for its core costs, Greenwich Dance has said that it is unable to continue operating.
Melanie Precious, CEO and Creative Director, said, “ever since the loss of our NPO funding in 2017 we have been consistently navigating financial challenges, but the lack of time we had to adjust to RBG’s withdrawal of funds earlier this year put the organisation into an immediate critical state. Add to that the context of the current political and socio-economic climate and it has simply become impossible to uphold our fundamental mission.
"By continually chasing project funding we risk limiting the organisation to whatever it is funded for. We believe in the transformational power of our work and if we are unable to fulfil this ambition then we cannot continue.”
The organisation is currently exploring options for its project-based work and community services to continue.