Year: 2017

Artsreach in Dorset welcome Becky Varndell to the team as their new Marketing and Development Officer. We got in touch with Becky to find out a little bit more about her, and what rural touring means to her!

1. Introduce yourself! Who are you and where have you come from and what will you be doing with Artsreach?

My name is Becky Varndell and I am the newest member of the Artsreach team working as the marketing and development officer. Since graduating from Plymouth University with an English with Media Arts degree in 2012, I have worked in digital marketing for an online events company and most recently as a tourism officer for the Lyme Regis Tourist Office. For the past three years I have acted with Lyme Regis amateur dramatic society’s The Marine Players and in the summer of 2017 I produced and acted in ‘Monmouth’ at the Marine Theatre, which went on to tour the South West in autumn 2017. I am so excited to get stuck into my new role helping to promote the diverse and rich programme of events on offer this season.What does rural touring mean to you?

Rural touring is hugely important because it delivers an accessible programme of professional theatre, dance and music to the heart of rural communities, who may not otherwise have the chance to engage with the arts. Artsreach really enriches Dorset communities, bringing people of diverse backgrounds and ages together to socialise, learn and connect through the arts. What’s more, promoters have the opportunity to choose which events they would like to host in their venue and a portion of the income generated from audience members purchasing tickets plays a vital role in supporting community venues. I feel lucky to work for such a valuable organisation made up of passionate and creative people.

• What are you most excited about getting stuck into?

I’m looking forward to dreaming up new ways in which Artsreach can develop as a company, helping to deliver new exciting projects to a wide range of audiences. Our spring brochure is currently being finalised and there are some amazing and diverse shows coming up. I can’t wait to spread the word and engage new audience members. I am excited to work closely with the volunteer promoters who work so hard to put everything together for their venue.

• What was the first rural touring show you ever saw?

I remember being captivated when my parents took me to a puppet show in my local village hall as a child. More recently I have listened to the inspirational Lyme Regis based sea shanty singers Harbour Voices and watched a very poignant performance of Tree House by Chris Fogg Projects.

• Do you have a top tip for anyone new to rural touring? Maybe a golden nugget about marketing?

When it comes to rural touring, strong, accurate communication is key, particularly as there are many different aspects and needs to fulfil including that of the performer, promoter, volunteers, touring organisation and of course, the audience. It’s also really important to utilise local networks in order to promote a show to it’s full advantage. Listening to your audience is essential in order for them to receive the best quality of performances suitable for their village.

Carn to Cove is delighted to announce that it has won a substantial award from the Arts Council of England ‘Strategic Touring Fund’ to develop its work in rural communities in Cornwall, Devon and the South West with a new project ‘Locomotor’. Carn to Cove is a project of the Cornish charity Creative Kernow based at Krowji in Redruth but active in 85 villages and towns around Cornwall. It presents professional rural touring performing arts and film (C Fylm) events through its network of community volunteers.

The Strategic Touring Fund award Carn to Cove has won from the Arts Council is to support their role in making the best in the arts available for rural communities. There are three strands of new activity which Locomotor will deliver:

First is the development of a sustainable rural touring offer in neighbouring Devon. Carn to Cove has been working with Villages in Action, the Devon charity which suspended rural touring performing arts in March 2017. The objective is to secure and resource the volunteer network in Devon active in their local communities to provide “Great Art for Everyone” with high quality performances and to build capacity for the sector there. This will include advocacy to local authorities around the social and economic impacts of arts activity, developing new partnerships in Devon and Cornwall, and testing new models of working between villages and market and coastal towns.

Secondly, the award will support an international programme to present more diverse work of different cultures in the South West. This builds on Carn to Cove hosting the ‘New Directions International’ showcase in Falmouth in 2016 for the National Rural Touring Forum and the international partnerships that have emerged from that – including Cornish companies touring overseas (graduate rural touring company Cheap Date Dance touring to Sweden in October 2017). Artists from Spain, Lithuania and Sweden are among those who will be performing and undertaking workshop and participation activity across all the rural touring schemes in the South West of England with partners Beaford Arts (Devon), Air in G (Gloucestershire), Artsreach ( Dorset), Rural Arts Wiltshire and South Glos, Takeart (Somerset) and Villages in Action (Devon). International touring is a priority area in the Strategic Touring Fund criteria and is partly resourced by the Olympic Lottery Distribution Fund.

Thirdly, the Locomotor project will enable the development of new online tools and web presence to improve box office income and therefore sustainability of the touring model. Box office income is already the main source of financing for the performing arts in rural spaces at both Carn to Cove and Villages in Action. Providing centralised online ticketing and marketing will improve access to these services to people living in remote rural communities and therefore attendance and sustainability.

Phil Gibby, Area Director, South West, Arts Council England, said: “Our National Lottery-funded Strategic Touring programme takes exciting arts and culture to places and people across the country who might not otherwise get the opportunity to benefit from these experiences. So, we’re pleased to be supporting Carn to Cove to bring the work of talented international artists to the south west, allowing a wide range of audiences to enjoy these shows on their doorsteps.”

In the third of our Rural Touring Dance Initiative Company profiles, we find a little bit more out about how James Wilton is prepared for his Autumn rural tour of ‘Last Man Standing.’

What are you most looking forward to?
New audiences in new areas, as well as testing our work in a completely new setting.

What have you packed in readiness for rural locations ?
Welly boots and our cocker spaniel Henry-thought we’d make the most of the lovely walks whilst in the country!

How do you think it will be different from touring to towns?
It will be nice to be really close to our audience, so often we perform to an auditorium in darkness, I suspect that this may not be the case which is an exciting new challenge as a performer.

Can you sum up your show in 3 words?
Grace, gravity and grit

What would you say to anyone who has never seen dance /theatre?
It can change your perspective on the world without even realising. You can visit other worlds and go inside other peoples minds, without even leaving your seat.

James Wilton Dance Website | Twitter | Facebook

Read our previous company profiles with Uchenna Dance here and bgroup here

om is a rural touring promoter. He is also Chair of NRTF. His article “What a Performance!” was featured in the Countryman magazine which is available in all good newsagents www.countrymanmagazine.co.uk. Read about Tom’s experiences below…

Sometimes it’s the ticket sales. But more usually it’s the positioning of the lights. Or the whereabouts of the corkscrew(s). Or working out how to squeeze another five seats in for late arrivals. Or juggling the dietary requirements of the actors who I’ve offered to feed before the show. But whatever the worries of being a rural touring promoter, it’s always great fun and immensely satisfying.

I first took an interest in what I learnt was called ‘rural touring’ in 2009. I was working as the news editor at BBC Radio Cumbria. Occasional press releases would come my way, advertising what sounded like high quality, professional performance art — drama, music, comedy, magic, even dance — all taking place in the extensive network of village halls that pepper a rural county like Cumbria.

I was intrigued. How on earth did that happen? How did they get such astonishing calibre of artists? How did this process work?

I dug a little deeper, and before I knew it, I had become what is known in the rural touring world as a ‘promoter’. That is, a volunteer who makes an event happen in their village hall.

Photo by Tom Middleton

There are currently 1,659 of us across rural England, Wales and Scotland. And in 2016 we put on shows to more than 330,000 paying audience members — a whopping twenty-six per cent increase over the last ten years.

My village of Castle Carrock hasabout 270 inhabitants and it’s located ten miles east of Carlisle, on the edge of the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. We lost our shop a few years ago when the proprietor died and no one stepped in. But we still have a good pub, a thriving school, a church and a village hall, the Watson Institute. And so we have enough amenities to keep some kind of community spirit going — so long as people use them. And hosting rural touring shows has been a crucial mechanism to keep the hall busy and talked about.

The role of being a promoter itself varies enormously. I am the programmer, the theatre director, the marketing department, the box office, the host and the front of house. And often I’m the lighting technician, the sound engineer and the stage manager too. A true modern-day rural impresario.

There are two seasons to the rural touring year where I live in Cumbria: the spring season and the autumn season.

An organisation called Highlights acts as the clearing house for me as I choose which shows to put on. Highlights is a charity, one of twenty-seven such schemes across the UK, and it’s staffed by three professionals who know what performance art will work in a village hall. So, along with about eighty other promoters across rural Cumbria, County Durham and Northumberland, I get to choose twice a year which shows, from the menu of maybe thirty that I’m offered, I want to bring to my hall.

My hall. It’s a very special place and means the world to me. Built in 1897 by the richest family in the village originally as a reading room, it’s now a wonderfully intimate village hall and venue where I can sit sixty-five people at a push, cabaret-style (small tables, candles, subdued lighting), with a small stage that I borrow from the school next door.

I know most of my audience very well. I’ve built up a very loyal following over the eight years that I’ve been promoting. The trick is to always, always maintain high standards and professionalism, and then they will learn to trust your selections, come what may.

About a third come from the village, the rest from further afield. Music always sells better than drama, and probably always will — I suppose it’s more accessible, less of a risk. But in my experience, it’s often the variety of the offer which drives success. Take the last three shows I’ve put on. In May I hosted the Montreal Guitar Trio from Quebec, who stunned everyone with their musicianship. In February it was an evening of poetry and music with Radio 4’s Kate Fox and Union Jill. And in late 2016 it was a play called Launch Party, about young people leaving the countryside.

So the variety is remarkable. And the bit that usually raises un knowing eyebrows is the professionalism.

All of the performers make a living out of this. All of them have done very well to be taken on by the schemes in the first place. But in return, performers have had mini tours created for them, often with the offer of free bed and breakfast thrown in, and the chance to ply their trade in wonderfully intimate venues.

The schemes get some of their money from the Arts Council, some from the box office and some (though less and less) from local authorities. It means that they can help sudsidise more ‘risky’ shows, encouraging more confident promoters to try out shows that might on paper be more difficult to sell. And all the schemes are affiliated to the National Rural Touring Forum, a small organisation with, again, a skeleton staff which advocates for rural touring as well as helping to drive a central strategy. (This summer I was appointed the new Forum chair.)

A recent three-year campaign to get professional dance into village halls — yes, dance into village halls — has been a huge success.

I love being involved. I love the challenge of choosing a show which I think will work for my audience (my reputation is constantly on the line). I love witnessing people coming together. I love experiencing superb performance art. All on my doorstep.

This article was originally printed in the October 2017 issue of the Countryman magazine which is available in all good newsagents as well as via subscription too www.countrymanmagazine.co.uk

In the second of our Rural Touring Dance Initiative Company profiles, we find a little bit more out about how Uchenna Dance are preparing for their Autumn rural tour of ‘The Head Wrap Diaries’ from their Creative Director Vicki Igbowke.

What are you most looking forward to?

Being on tour! This is our first tour of this scale and to rural audiences, we are really excited to be part of the scheme and sharing this show with those we would not normally engage with.

What have you packed in readiness for rural locations?

Food is VERY important to the company (LOL) so we have all packed those essential snacks that will keep us going while on the road. We also have some equipment, set and a mobile installation that we hope to be able to display at most venues.

How do you think it will be different from touring to towns?

The difference is that rural touring as a real intimate feel to it, we are being welcomed into the local community by the local community on all levels including communication with promoters pre-tour, recreating bespoke versions of the show for each individual venue to being looked after post show in the homes of those from the community. You just don’t get this kind of intimacy touring to town and big cities.

Can you sum up your show in 3 words?

Culture, Laughter, Hair

What would you say to anyone who has never seen dance /theatre?

Come with an open mind, know that you do not need to get all of it as there is not always a deep and meaningful story to work out and just enjoy the dance and music

Uchenna Dance website | twitter | instagram | facebook

To find out when and where Uchenna Dance are touring click here.

Read our previous company profile with bgroup here.