Dorchester ARTS celebrates increased Arts Council funding!

Staff and volunteers at Dorchester Arts are celebrating after receiving a 56% increase in their funding from the Arts Council. The charity is among 695 organisations across the country awarded new status as a National Portfolio Organisation - giving it a guaranteed role to deliver a programme of arts projects to the local community.

“We are a tiny arts organisation doing extraordinary work. To have secured increased funding in the light of national cuts is wonderful recognition of our work and great news for the thousands of people involved in our projects and our events,” explained Dorchester Arts Chair, Alastair Nisbet. 

“This guarantees Dorchester Festival in both 2012 and 2014 and ensures our programme and community work are secure up to 2015. It’s also great news for Weymouth where we are already running three projects with young people - and have plans to expand. In the past we have had to apply separately for support for Dorchester Festival, and have not always been able to run the festival - now this support is included in our core funding, so it will be embedded in our programme, giving us financial security for the event.”

“Dorchester Festival has been hailed as a regional exemplar championing cultural diversity. In last year’s festival we put on 65 free events, worked with 708 performers and attracted more than 15,000 audience members.”

“Our aim is to provide great art for everyone and guaranteed funding for the next two Festivals is the boost we need to make it an even stronger event, drawing in more people than ever.”

“Arts Council funding is being cut by 30% as part of government cuts so to secure enhanced funding in these circumstances is wonderful recognition of the value of the work we are doing.  I must pay a special tribute to the brilliant work of our staff and particularly to Artistic Director Sharon Hayden and our Strategy Director Chris Huxley who together devised our three year strategy. Our success is also down to the wonderful support we receive from our other major funders - Dorchester Town Council and West Dorset District Council, who worked closely with us on the 2009 review of the arts in Dorchester and who continue to be key partners in our work."

“We look forward to an exciting time ahead enabling more people to enjoy high quality inspirational arts and to raising the cultural profile of Dorchester the Jurassic coast and the Cultural Olympiad.”

- Ends -

Celebrating: Dorchester ARTS Artistic Director Sharon Hayden (left) with Strategy Director Chris Huxley, Admin assistant Celeste Hayden and Chair of the Board Alastair Nisbet 

Note to editors:

Arts Council England South West have announced guaranteed funding for Dorchester Arts of over £58,000 per annum, for three years 2012 - 2015.

For more information contact:

Alastair Nisbet, Chair of Dorchester ARTS

01305 266926 

Desert Crossing - the launch of Dorset's Cultural Olympiad

Dorset’s Cultural Olympiad kicks off!

Friday 1 April - Desert Crossing
State of Emergency Dance Company



Dorchester Corn Exchange 8pm
£10/ £8 members / £6 under 18’s & concessions

Friday 1 April heralds the start of Dorset’s exciting Cultural Olympiad programme.  Dorchester will be hosting an exceptional contemporary dance company – State of Emergency – performing their ground breaking new work Desert Crossing.
Inspired by the similarities between our South West Jurassic Coast and the Skeleton Coast of Namibia this exciting work explores human evolution and how the landscape influences us all.

Five dancers from different cultural backgrounds, directed by acclaimed South African choreographer Gregory Maqoma, produce a stunning visual journey across deserts, seas and mountains.

They create life forms that are neither fish nor bird, man or woman, spirit nor flesh but united through their shared history of the rocks on which they stand.

A powerful celebration of our Jurassic evolution.

Friday 15 April - Peeling
Forest Forge Theatre Company

Dorchester Arts Centre 8pm

*** Touch tour for visually impaired 7.30pm ***
Tickets: £8 / £6 members and conc.
Peeling, by Kaite O’Reilly, is a darkly comic play revealing the choices women make and the things they hide...

It gives audiences a unique and compelling experience as it cunningly interweaves audio description and sign language. 

Alpha, Beaty and Coral are three actresses hoping for their big break, waiting in the wings, in the chorus of a production of The Trojan Women.

As they wait for their cues the three girls bicker, chat and swap stories. Gradually we learn more about them as they peel away layers of their stories along with their ridiculous and cumbersome costumes!

“A dense and dangerous play… the characters are tragic and comic, heartbreaking and ridiculous... a major piece of Theatre” The Guardian. 

SATURDAY 16 APRIL - PHIL BEER - SOLD OUT!
Box Office 01305 266 926
www.dorchesterarts.org.uk

Mesmerising drama from Cube theatre

Friday March 25th, Dorchester ARTS Centre • 8pm (doors and bar 7.30pm) • £8 / £6 members & concessions


Mesmerising, hilarious, heart-rending... Cornwall's Cube Theatre return to Dorchester Arts on March 25th with their wonderful new play Gepetto and the story of a man's obsessive search for his puppet boy.

In New York’s lower east side, in the middle of the 1950’s a teenage girl answers a hastily scrawled, grubby advert on a whim. It invites her to audition for the role of puppeteer in a forthcoming production of Pinocchio.

When she enters the shabby flat where the audition is being held, nothing is quite as she was expecting. Least of all the fact that the odd, foreign-accented, ill-at-ease man she finds there calls himself Geppetto (the name of Pinocchio’s father in the original story).

Unwittingly she sets off on a bewildering journey through descending layers of deception and dysfunction, a journey which in its own, bizarre, horrific, comic way, leads them both to the gates of hell.

Geppetto, written by Jon Welch, combines Cube’s trademark electric dialogue with mesmerizing puppetry. Not to be missed!

Tickets £8 / £6 Members & Concessions
Box Office: 01305 266926 or direct from the website www.dorchesterarts.org.uk

Perseus and Medusa - our half term workshop film

Perseus must kill the Medusa to save his mother from the evil King. But one glance from the snake-haired creature will turn him to stone...

Animation by a group of children aged 8-14 at a two day workshop at Dorchester ARTS in February 2011

Soundtrack: Somewhere Sunny and Clenched Teeth by Kevin Macleod (incompetech.com)

Haunting melodies and dramatic storytelling - Friday 4 March - venue change

Please note the change of venue to Dorchester ARTS

The dreamlike myths of Ancient Greece - set to haunting cello melodies, come to Dorchester ARTS this Friday, March 4th when two members of the wonderful Devils Violin return for an evening of storytelling and music.

Daniel Morden and Sarah Moody are well known to Dorchester Arts audiences following their sell-out performance of the Singing Bones with the Devils violin last year. Their shows are quite magical. Using the most basic components of theatre they conjure unforgettable images.

The combination of voice and haunting melody is perfectly suited to the poignant, dreamlike myths of ancient Greece. These timeless stories of love and loss still have the power to move us. This captivating performance features some of the most famous tales of the classical world, such as Demeter & Persephone, Orpheus in the Underworld, Midas and Echo & Narcissus.

The evening opens with the premiere of Dorchester Arts' latest children's animation - Perseus and the Medusa - made by a group of children, aged 8-14 over two days at half term with community filmmaker Alastair Nisbet .