Greenwich Dance To Support Freelance Dance Artists With £192,820 From Cultural Recovery Fund

Greenwich Dance has been awarded £192,820 as part of the Government's £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund (CRF) to help face the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and to ensure they have a sustainable future, the Culture Secretary announced on Saturday 17 October.

Greenwich Dance is one of 588 cultural and creative organisations across the country receiving urgently needed support - with £76 million of investment announced over the weekend. This follows £257 million awarded earlier last week to 1,385 organisations, also from the Culture Recovery Fund grants programme being administered by Arts Council England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Further rounds of funding in the cultural and heritage sector are due to be announced over the coming weeks.

Throughout the pandemic Greenwich Dance, already operating peripatetically, has reinvented itself as a dance organisation 'without walls', building a dynamic online home for itself and the artists it works with. Within this the team will create a revolutionary new creation space which has the potential to transform the way dance is created and presented. Using this model Greenwich Dance will restart the creation of original work safely with 70% of the grant amount going directly to artists and freelancers.

Melanie Precious, Chief Executive Officer of Greenwich Dance said "This grant will be transformational for us as well as for the artists we work with. In applying for this grant our concern extended beyond our own future to that of the independent freelance workforce, without whom Greenwich Dance would have no purpose or mandate. Whist we recognised that this fund was not being offered for experimentation we also felt certain that without new ideas the sector could not survive. We are thrilled and relieved to be in receipt of this funding so that we can work to keep artists creating."

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:

"This is more vital funding to protect cultural gems across the country, save jobs and prepare the arts to bounce back. Through Arts Council England we are delivering the biggest ever investment in the arts in record time. Hundreds of millions of pounds are already making their way to thousands of organisations.

"These awards build on our commitment to be here for culture in every part of the country."

Chair, Arts Council England, Sir Nicholas Serota, said:

"Culture is an essential part of life across the country, helping to support people's wellbeing through creativity and self-expression, bringing communities together, and fuelling our world class creative industries.

"This latest set of awards from the Culture Recovery Fund builds on those announced recently and will help hundreds of organisations to survive the next few months, ensuring that the cultural sector can bounce back after the crisis. We will continue doing everything we can to support artists and cultural and creative organisations, with further funding to be announced in the coming weeks."

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