Performing arts

Manchester International Festival 2019 continues its diverse and expansive programme with the premiere of grime superstar Skepta's DYSTOPIA987 installation on 17–18 July 2019. 

Siobhan Davies Dance (London) and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (Gateshead) are pleased to announce the expansion of their four-year partnership, CONTINUOUS, to form the CONTINUOUS Network which will incorporate institutions around the country. This major collaboration has been awarded an Arts Council England National Lottery Project Grant for £341,144 and £90,000 in support from the John Ellerman Foundation.

Sixteen years after the breakthrough grime album Boy In Da Corner by Dizzee Rascal was released, Stormzy headlined Glastonbury Festival 2019 bringing this resolutely British sound to a global audience. 

Manchester International Festival will take over the city centre of one of the UK's most creative and inspiring places with a vast programme of the best in UK and international arts, collaboration and curation.

The lineup, which takes place 4-23 July, is a daring selection of diverse works, including world premieres and unique collaborations.

The Royal Exchange, with the aid of the Oglesby Charitable Trust, has developed a new pop-up theatre for Manchester residents to make and share theatre, as well as see Royal Exchange Performances in their own areas.

The Den, created by Haworth Tompkins, will visit areas of Manchester as part of the Royal Exchange's long-running community programme, Local Exchange. The theatre will be constructed and operated by residents in each community becoming its ushers, door staff, technical team and audience.

Up to £3,000 is available for UK musicians and professionals wanting to develop and perform work in Russia for British Council's UK-Russia Year of Music 2019 programme.

The funding is open to "individual musicians and professionals (e.g. composers, conductors, performers, librettists, sound artists, event producers) who have an existing interest in or contact with Russia, and who have a strong project idea that funding would help them to fulfil."

The 2019 Stratford-upon-Avon Poetry Festival will have an international theme that will celebrate Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon as a meeting place for all poets.

Britain is a dynamic and evolving country with young people coming from a wide variety of backgrounds, yet the children's sector does not always reflect this. We need to ensure young people are represented, recognised and given role models within the sector and that is exactly what Vital Spark hopes to do.

Arts and culture bring people together, through sharing perspectives and appealing to wide audiences. There are plenty of UK organisations and events that are actively pushing to include a greater spectrum of people from differing backgrounds and experiences.