Sarah Blanc and Annie Hanauer. Photo by Roswitha Chesher
By remaining operational throughout the pandemic, Greenwich Dance continued to support its network of artists, communities and the sector.
Launched in Spring 2021, Greenwich Dance’s ArtsUnboxed platform continues to provide an innovative way to sustainably tour dance works across the country and help kickstart creativity in the sector, while also offering artists an income stream through royalties. Anatomical, Joss Arnott Dance, Anna Vicky Sarah, NOCTURN, Pervez and Temujin Gill each created boxes alongside their producers.
To create their boxes the artist and producer pairs were supported by a team of freelance specialists including Senior Producer Rajpal Pardesi, Dramaturg Lou Cope, Communications & Digital Consultant Lucy White, and Access and Inclusion Consultant Alex Covell. The project also saw performer Annie Edwards take on a paid shadowing position, mentored by Alex, to help support her professional career development.
We are continuing to explore ways to develop the platform – adding new boxes to it and supporting artists to use it to develop sustainable businesses.
“Although COVID has been devastating to our normal model of operation I am proud, that alongside my incredible team and the artists and producers we have been working so closely with, we have managed to successfully navigate these challenging times and continue to be there for our creatives, communities and for each other as we begin to emerge from this crisis.”
Melanie Precious, CEO and Creative Director of Greenwich Dance
Talking Moves, the Greenwich Dance podcast, was also launched in this period (October 2020). Each episode brings two artists together to talk about the issues that move them and serves as inspirational listening to artists established in their careers as well as those coming into the sector. Five series have been recorded (find them wherever you get your podcasts!) and included 60 artists.
Life in Lockdown was an online blog series which we started in April 2020. It was conceived as a way firstly to offer artists some paid work at a time when so much freelance work had dried up, but also as a way to document, in real time, how creatives were surviving the pandemic – almost as an online time-capsule. Over 30 artists took part and the series has now been brought into the British Library’s archive of covid projects.
