Collaborative Touring Network

From 2013-2019 Luxi ran Jabberwocky Market pop-up theatre events in partnership with London’s renowned Battersea Arts Centre as part of the UK Collaborative Touring Network (CTN).

CTN, a partnership between Battersea Arts Centre and eight national partners, began in 2013 with a shared vision for a nation where everyone has inspiring art and culture on their doorstep. With producing teams working in Hull, Darlington, Gloucester, Thanet, Torbay, Wigan, Peterborough and Medway we produced, presented and promoted diverse events to feed an appetite for culture in communities across the country.

The network supported and developed artists locally and nationally to present inspiring theatre events and festivals occupying parks, community centres, boxing gyms and nightclubs (over 170 different spaces); imagining and manifesting new contexts for performances that inspire audiences and artists alike.

Shows that toured with CTN include Christopher Brett Bailey’s This is How We Die, Theatre Ad Infinitum’s Ballad of the Burning Star, Victoria Melody’s Major Tom, The Paper Cinema’s Odyssey, Touretteshero’s Backstage in Biscuit Land, Foreign Radical by Theatre Conspiracy, Ground Control by Non Zero One and Rendezvous in Bratislava by Miriam Sherwood, Paper Cinema’s Macbeth, Lost Dog’s Juliet and Romeo, Caroline Williams & Reem Karssli Now is The Time To Say Nothing and FILSKIT THEATRE Kaleidoscope.

‘Growing a future model of arts engagement that could flourish all over the country and transform the opportunities available to both artists and audiences’ The Guardian

‘An inspiring project, marrying the best of the subsidised sector with true grassroots innovation and work’ Exeunt

The Collaborative Touring Network was supported by Arts Council England Strategic Touring Fund, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and Garfield Weston Foundation.

CTN was supported to present inspiring arts and culture around the country primarily by Arts Council England, the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, the Garfield Weston Foundation . We are all Unlimited Allies with a commitment to access for all.

Awards

In 2015 Jabberwocky Markets were awarded the Journal Culture Award for Best Event Teesside. In 2016 we were runners up in the Best of Darlington Awards forContribution to the Arts. In 2017 we won Best Contribution to the Arts and were runners up for Bringing Success to Darlington.

A Name

Why are they called Jabberwocky Markets? (We are often asked.)

Founded in Darlington, a market town in north-east England, markets are places that people come together to exchange things, to make transactions; our currency is stories and ideas and connection, and our audiences returning time and again make the community.

Now, a Jabberwocky is a mythical creature, you can’t buy one (or more than one) but you can imagine them, or be inspired by them; they were first envisioned by Lewis Carroll when he lived up the road in Croft-on-Tees and they’re a diverse kind of dragon.

Jabberwocky Market pop-up theatre events are both inclusive and aspirational, innovative and reassuringly familiar. They are just theatre events, with a little twist, and when you come along we think you’ll feel that.

Our partners: