The Place has secured a €200,000 Creative Europe grant towards a €333,000 project with three EU partners, which will test a new model of developing dance performance for young audiences from October and run for two years.
The project "encourages entrepreneurialism, smart investment and financial sustainability for artists and organisations and responds to the growing marginalisation of culture and arts education in Europe at a time when the potential of culture to widen the mind, explore difference and foster tolerance and understanding is most needed." It aims to test how existing performance work made for adults can be made suitable for a younger audience with some adaptations and will be developed through collaborations from European partner organisations in Finland (Annantalo, Helsinki), Italy (Comune di Bassano) and Czech Republic (Tanec Praha).
A selection panel of artists from each partner organisation will select work from early career makers that "pushes the boundaries of traditional performance for young people, represent the diversity of young audiences and is adaptable to a range of performance spaces." Out of four selected works, there will be at least one suitable for each age group of early years (3–5), primary (6–11) and teenage (12–15).