Happy New Year from Luxi, January 2013

2012 was a great adventure; we established the company, worked with some extraordinary artists and travelled the world.  2013 feels like its going to be even better.  We are working with partners nationally and internationally to develop genuinely ground-breaking artistic projects.  It might not be big ground, but it’s ground nonetheless.  We shall be helping to tell the stories of communities, bringing the world to the north east and some home grown talent to the world.  New opportunities are emerging, the cultural world is very different and continues to evolve and much as we oppose cuts to vital infrastructure, we are ploughing forward to find new ways to thrive.

If you, like us, are interested in pushing the boundaries of collaboration, keep an eye out for Happy Accidents, our project working with makers of different artforms to explore collaborative processes and especially how different people consider their audiences.

If you want to see a play in an amazing warehouse, you should book tickets for Alice in Bed which we are producing with Tender Buttons.  Tess Denman-Cleaver is a brilliant, young director who has been working with artists and community groups for two years to prepare for the production.  Rehearsals start later this month and performances are from Wednesday 27th February to Sunday 3rd march.  Tickets are really scarce so if you are interested, I suggest you book now.

Later this year we are planning a host of projects in Darlington, not least The Jabberwocky Market.  2013 marks the 150th birthday of the town’s Indoor Market so it’s overdue a bit of theatre, not that daily happenings there aren’t performance enough.

Dancers are still really close to our hearts and we are finding ways to support professional development opportunities for the excellent artists we work with, making links with some of the best international training and performance spaces and helping shows made here to travel.

That’s all for now, but before I go, I’d like to publicly thank some of the people who have been extremely supportive during our first year…  Peter Flynn and Katherine Banner our amazing board, Stephen Wiper, Lynda Winstanley and Lyndsey Middleton, everyone involved in If These Walls Could Dance, Amanda Drago and Arts Council England, Jeanne Hale for her unerring support, Natalie Querol and Caroline Routh, Hannah Clarke-Stamp, Sarah Hearn and all the dancers from Dance Nest, Heather Knight and Teresa Threadgall, James Froment and Alison Rigby for variously picking up the technicalities and some wonderful artists, in no particular order, Emma Beach, Lynn Campbell, Peter Groom, Gillie Kleiman, Michael Spenceley, Nicole Vivien Watson.  As ever in these things this list could go on and hopefully it will, this year. 🙂