Access and diversity in the arts

The sixth edition of the Shubbak Festival: A Window on Contemporary Arab Culture runs from 20^th June – 17^th July, 2021. Born out of the rupture across Arab countries ten years ago, Shubbak 2021 returns with an ambitious programme that connects audiences and communities with the best of contemporary Arab visual arts, film, music, theatre, dance, literature and debate.

After five years of promoting UK arts and culture, encouraging international cultural export and exchange, and providing an information hub for the entire UK culture sector, the Culture Diary will close on 31 March 2021.

All Government programmes are kept under review. Following a recent evaluation of the Culture Diary, it has been agreed that the website will continue to support the planning and delivery of the Coventry 2021 City of Culture programme until 31 March 2022, but will otherwise cease to be updated after 31 March 2021.

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Are you under 30? Are you developing a River Thames themed project? Do you want extra support from us to take part in Totally Thames 2021? We are thrilled to announce an exciting new opportunity for three early career artists.

Manchester City Council, with industry partners HOME, have announced a £500,000 hardship fund for freelancers working in Manchester, made possible by a generous gift from the Savannah Wisdom Foundation.

The Savannah Wisdom Foundation has created a discretionary fund to support freelancers working in the creative and cultural sectors who are facing financial hardship as a result of COVID-19. The charity is making up to £500,000 available in grants of £1,500 to individual freelancers.

Nesta’s Arts & Culture Finance has launched a new platform to showcase the potential of impact investment in the creative economy to drive social and environmental change.

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games cultural festival has received £6 million in funding from Arts Council and the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The funding will go towards staging a six-month-long cultural festival from March to September 2022. The funds will be ringfenced for West Midlands projects to be delivered ahead of the Games to positively impact communities.

The British Council has announced recipients of the Digital Collaboration Fund, supporting UK and overseas cultural partnerships to develop digitally innovative ways of collaborating.

After last year's online world-class ballet lessons with Tamara Rojo, Artistic Director and Principal Dancer, English National Ballet has launched a subscription service for on demand video classes for all skill levels. BalletActive is an additional service to ENB at Home which already offered full-length recordings of classic ballet performances for rent, including 'Akram Khan's Giselle' and 'Dust'. Learn more here.

The UK/Italy Season - the British Council’s first digital-led Season of Culture - took place 17 September - 30 November 2020. Supported by the British Embassy in Rome, it comprised over 50 virtual events spanning dance, literature, music, theatre and visual arts.

Southbank Centre has revealed the first digital Unlimited festival programme accessible to a global audience, featuring dance, performance, comedy, film, talks, workshops and art that celebrates the artistic vision of disabled artists over five days on 13-17 January 2021.