Rural Touring Dance Initiative

About the Project

The Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI) is a national project which supports dance artists & rural promoters to make great dance performance events happen in rural spaces.

RTDI was launched in 2015 when The Place, National Rural Touring Forum (NRTF), China Plate and Take Art joined forces to address the lack of quality dance in rural spaces. From the start, RTDI has introduced some of the UK’s leading dance companies to rural touring including Lost Dog, Luca Silvestrini’s Protein, Uchenna Dance, Scottish Dance Theatre, Mr & Mrs Clark, Jo Fong and George Orange, and Joshua ‘Vendetta’ Nash.

Over the years RTDI has transformed UK rural dance touring. An evaluation report of the project’s second phase published in 2022, highlighted that 98% of audiences enjoyed watching the performances, with 88% saying the experiences made them want to see more dance, demonstrating demand for high quality touring dance.

In July 2022, the current RTDI partners (The Place, Highlights, NRTF, Sonia Sabri Company, Take Art) were awarded £400,000 from Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and £450,000 from Arts Council England to continue the project from 2023 – 2026. As well as supporting 10 new associate venues to programme dance in rural areas and market towns, many of them in Levelling Up for Culture places, the funding will enable RTDI to support eight dance artists & companies per year to tour their work to rural areas, with over 200 performances and 90 workshops expected between autumn 2023 and summer 2026.

RTDI: Autumn 23/Spring 24

In July 2022 RTDI partners announced a national open call for dance makers with tour ready shows. Artists who wanted to tour their work to rural areas applied, and the seven shows on this menu were selected by a panel which, for the first time, included an artist and a promoter.

We are excited to support these eight incredible productions to develop tours and meaningful relationships into rural communities. For more information on bookings or engaging with RTDI please contact Courtney Beadle.

Project Overview

To find out more about RTDI, visit our previous project page here

https://www.ruraltouring.org/project/rural-touring-dance-initiative-3/

Downloads

Downloads

Handy guides, resources, information and more for RTDI Artists, promoters and scheme managers. All you need for starting or finding out more about a Rural Touring Dance Initiative…

RTDI Menu 5Download

RTDI Marketing Toolkit PDF 3,184kb

RTDI Toolkit – Hosting a Dance Company PDF 2,081kb

RTDI-Tech-Toolkit PDF 2,083kb

RTDI-Brochure-1 PDF 7,055kb

Marketing for Rural Touring – Filmed Presentation from the 2019 Lab

https://www.ruraltouring.org/resource/marketing-for-rural-audiences-full-video-presentation/

Member Only Resource: Tech Consideration when Rural Touring – Filmed Presentation from the 2019 Lab

https://www.ruraltouring.org/resource/tech-considerations-when-rural-touring/

Previous Menus

RTDI-Menu-2-web.pdf PDF 1,291kb

RTDI-Menu3-for-web.pdf PDF 959kb

RTDI-Menu-4-web.pdf PDF 915kb

Related Pages

Related Pages, Links and News…

Rural Touring Dance Initiative – 2022, and project overview

https://www.ruraltouring.org/project/rural-touring-dance-initiative-2/

Rural Touring Dance Initiative kicks off its 2020 with a programme of seven works from leading dance companies comprising new shows and returning favourites

u003ca href=u0022https://www.ruraltouring.org/news/a-new-year-of-rural-dance-an-eclectic-mix-of-shows-to-visit-village-venues-this-spring/u0022 target=u0022_blanku0022 aria-label=u0022 (opens in a new tab)u0022 rel=u0022noreferrer noopeneru0022 class=u0022c-anchoru0022u003eRead Moreu003c/au003e

What’s it like to design a dance show for Rural Touring? What’s On Stage Article

u003ca href=u0022http://www.whatsonstage.com/london-theatre/news/sets-point-of-echoes-village-hallsben-wright_45798.htmlu0022 target=u0022_blanku0022 aria-label=u0022 (opens in a new tab)u0022 rel=u0022noreferrer noopeneru0022 class=u0022c-anchoru0022u003eRead Moreu003c/au003e

Rural Dance Touring Initiative: Call Out For Artists – Deadline October 2019

u003ca href=u0022https://www.ruraltouring.org/latest/dance-artistssought-to-create-new-shows-for-rural-audiencesu0022 target=u0022_blanku0022 aria-label=u0022 (opens in a new tab)u0022 rel=u0022noreferrer noopeneru0022 class=u0022c-anchoru0022u003eRead Moreu003c/au003e

Guest Post: Rachel Elderkin on the Rural Touring Dance Initiative

u003ca href=u0022https://www.mobiusindustries.com/news/i-dont-safe-shows-why-rural-touring-might-just-be-/u0022 target=u0022_blanku0022 aria-label=u0022 (opens in a new tab)u0022 rel=u0022noreferrer noopeneru0022 class=u0022c-anchoru0022u003eRead Moreu003c/au003e