The Rural Touring Dance Initiative, launched last year to take contemporary dance to village halls and community venues around the country, tours its first cohort of shows this autumn which have been selected by programmers looking for work to stage locally.
The first shows to tour will be Panta Rei's I Wish Her Well, Protein's May Contain Food (May Contain You), Lost Dog's Paradise Lost (lies open beside me), Spilt Milk's Say Dance/Blast from the Past, Joan Cleville's Plan B for Utopia and Lila Dance's Deluge.
A programme of activities has been designed by each company to accompany the shows: Lost Dog’s Ben Duke will lead discussions on creation, poetry and parenthood, Protein will invite audiences to bring local specialities to eat and share and Lîla Dance will recruit an extended cast from the local area.
The Rural Touring Dance Initiative is a three-year scheme for making and touring dance performances to rural areas led by the National Rural Touring Forum with dance institution The Place, arts charity Take Art and independent producing studio China Plate.
NRTF’s Development Director Ralph Lister said, “currently only a very small amount of dance tours to rural areas; this initiative will address issues and challenges on both the supply and demand side of the equation.
"More companies will be encouraged and supported to take their work out of a regular ‘black box’ setting into village halls, with all the delights and issues that brings with it.
"In addition it will create opportunities for many more rural touring staff and volunteer promoters to see exciting and engaging dance on a broad spectrum and to then programme and promote these shows to their local village audience.”