Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival call out for ‘Love Micro-Commissions’
Callout launch: 5 th June 2020
Closing date: Sunday 5th July 2020 – midnight
Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival (D&G Arts Festival) is the only region-wide performing arts organisation in Dumfries and Galloway (D&G). Our 10-day festival in May is the largest rural performing arts festival in Scotland bringing performance to people in some of the most remote areas of the UK. Since 2016 we have developed and delivered our year-round programme, Arts Live and we are a promoter and performing arts network that supports venues, artists and promoters from across the region, who in turn enable us to curate a diverse year round performing arts programme.
D&G Arts Festival will support 11 performing artists through 11 micro-commissions for sharing with audiences July 2020 – December 2020. Performing artists could be working in dance, theatre, spoken word, music, live art, comedy, interdisciplinary performance.
MICRO-COMMISSIONS
There are 11 micro-commissions available. Six of the commissions are open to performing artists at any career stage, based anywhere in Scotland. Five of these micro-commissions will be offered to young people between 18-25 who are based in Dumfries and Galloway as part of our Stage-iT programme, with a callout to those ages 15-18 coming soon. We particularly welcome proposals from artists facing additional barriers in their work.
Young artists’ commissions x 5
- 1 x £1000
- 2 x £500
- 2 x £300
For presentation July – December 2020 (Stage iT funded by the Holywood Trust)
Open commissions x 6
- 1 x £1000
- 2 x £500
- 3 x £300
For presentation July – October 2020
We are inviting proposals that respond to the theme of LOVE. What we pay attention to grows. We want to pay attention to artists, the resource D&G and its festival have to offer as a place to make and perform your work and we want to pay attention to LOVE as…
…a catalyst for change (how would you love things to be?)
…an emotion (what do you love?)
…a feeling of hope (just add love)
…a desire to care (handle with love)
This invitation is our first attempt to work with artists post-Covid-19 and we want to begin a journey of learning what artists and our audiences and communities might need in this new world through this process.
HOW TO APPLY
- Closing date: Sunday 5th July 2020 – midnight
- Contact email: Kim Simpson, Programmer (Freelance) – programme@dgartsfestival.org.uk
- Application: CV (no more than two pages)
- Links to/examples of work (no more than 5)
- Proposal (no more than two pages or 10mins of video/sound recording) outlining the idea and how it meets the criteria for this micro-commission Alternative formats:
We welcome proposals in formats/languages such as BSL, Braille, sound or video recording or transcribed by phone. We have a budget for removing any barriers you might face in submitting a proposal. Please contact Kim Simpson on programme@dgartsfestival.org.uk if you would like to discuss this or submit your application by phone.
Find out more
Kim Simpson, who recently joined the team at D&G Arts Festival as Programmer, will be running two Zoom coffee shops while the invitation is open for artists considering a proposal. 14:00 – 15:00 on Tuesday 16th June 2020 11:00 – 12:00 on Tuesday 23rd June 2020 Please email programme@dgartsfestival.org.uk up to 24 hours before the session for the link, including any access requirements you may have.
The downloadable document below contains further information that will help you decide if our micro-commission is right for you and to help you with your proposal. It includes why we are doing micro-commissions, how they will work, what we are looking for, who we want to hear from, the selection process and some details about the region of Dumfries and Galloway.