Circulate Announces Successful Artists for Funded Residencies Across London

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March 15, 2017, 3:50 p.m.

Circulate Announces Successful Artists for Funded Residencies Across London

The Circulate Consortium has announced an investment of £80,000 over two years in four artist residencies that aim to increase diverse provision in outdoor arts. Each artist or company will receive £20,000 over their two year residency.

Circulate is London’s flagship outdoor arts touring network, led by Watermans and comprising the Albany, Stratford Circus Arts Centre and Millfield Theatre with partners ISAN (Independent Street Arts Network) and the Greater London Authority.

Its purpose is to bring high quality arts events to neighbourhoods where Londoners live and where there is low arts provision. A key strand of this programme is to build the pipeline of high quality outdoor arts work that will continue to build engagement with the highly diverse audiences Circulate has been able to reach over the last four years of its programme.

Justine Simons, Deputy Mayor for Culture and Creative Industries said: “All Londoners should be able to access our city’s world-renowned cultural offering, whichever corner of the capital they live in. I’m thrilled to see Circulate supporting the work of local artists, allowing them to take their work into communities and develop their skills. London’s cultural hotspots extend far beyond the city centre, and these residencies will open up the world of performance to diverse audiences who may never have experienced it before.”

The residencies cover diverse art forms and support each artist in a tailored way to realise their artistic ambitions in outdoor arts. Each residency will receive £10,000 over two years with a further £5,000 each year available for audience development directly supporting their work. As well as this they will benefit from free rehearsal space, advice and mentoring from the consortium and partner ISAN.

The residencies announced are:

Watermans will host Akademi. Akademi has been bringing South Asian dance outdoors to unusual spaces since 1979. Their work is inspired by extraordinary spaces, actively pushing the boundaries of where dance can appear. The Circulate residency allows Akademi to present its new production to many diverse communities and share and exciting participatory programme of dance.

Millfield Theatre will host Mem Morrison Company: Mem is an artist who creates live art performance and installations with the engagement of diverse communities at their heart. The residency will allow him to work directly with communities in each Circulate location to understand the individual concerns of residents, whether local or global, and to turn these into a large scale participative artwork.

The Albany will host Levantes’ Dance Theatre. Levantes’ are a Lewisham-based company established in 2005. They have a history of presenting very visual, humorous and playful work. In this case, the Circulate residency is supporting local talent to work within their community to develop new work.

Stratford Circus Arts Centre will host Ockham’s Razor. Ockham’s Razor have been creating and touring critically acclaimed work across the UK and internationally for twelve years and are working with Circulate to branch into the Outdoor Arts Sector.

Over the two years of the residencies, there will be numerous opportunities for touring work around London. Working over this long period will enable the artists to develop and refine their work from their experience of working closely with communities and performing to wider communities.

The Circulate Consortium has built this approach based on its learnings from the 2012-15 Circulate Seeds programme which demonstrated the value of artists working within local communities in a responsive and flexible way.

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Notes to Editors:

About Circulate

Circulate is a group of four London venues working together to bring outstanding Outdoor Arts to outer London. As well as putting on free outdoor arts events, we are building outdoor arts audiences and outdoor arts capacity in London, through community engagement and an artist development programme. The consortium is funded by Arts Council England's Strategic Touring Fund and in 2016 won a further three years funding to continue the programme until 2018. The consortium partners are: Watermans, The Albany, Millfield Theatre and Stratford Circus Arts Centre, with GLA and the Independent Street Arts Network (ISAN) as partners. The three year touring programme appears annually in Hounslow, Lewisham, Enfield and Newham with new locations added every year. Visit the website.

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