ADVOCATING BODIES
BLACKTRESS
Who: A grassroots network and support group for self-defined Black Womxn actors of the African diaspora.
What: “Led by expert Black Womxn practitioners from the arts. Blacktress offer workshops that inspire ideas through conversation and creativity. This is where we challenge our ideas, give what we can in spirit and take away something that can be used NOW in the rehearsal/audition room and life.“
COMMON
Who: Common supports the UK creative industries to achieve greater intersectional, socio-economic diversity
What: “Common was founded as a direct response to the historic exclusion of socio-economic inequality from the ‘diversity debate’ in the UK creative industries.”
“Our mission is to make arts & culture widely accessible to the working-class; whether they’re artists, audiences or communities.”
“Common create new programmes and opportunities to support the skill and career development of working-class creatives across the UK.”
DANCE MAMA
Who: Dance Mama is an advocacy entity celebrating professional dancing parents, highlight the issues that they face and providing inspiration, information and support.
Founded by Lucy McCrudden, it began as an article in One Dance UK’s magazine back in 2014 after she became a mum and was dissatisified with the lack of industry support. The site now holds over 60 stories (9 our now a podcast), a mentoring programme, information hub and most recently Dance Mama Live! A programme of professional development activity online, supported by Arts Council England and in partnership with Sadler’s Wells, One Dance UK, Yorkshire Dance, DanceXchange and Clearcut.
What: We empower parents who dance to blend their caring responsibilities with their artform
DISABILITY ARTS ONLINE
Who: An organisation led by disabled people, set up to advance disability arts and culture through the pages of our journal.
What: “Our raison d’être is to support disabled artists, as much as anything by getting the word out about the fantastic art being produced by artists within the sector.“
“We give disabled artists a platform to blog and share thoughts and images describing artistic practice, projects and just the daily stuff of finding inspiration to be creative. We know that being an artist is a hard road to travel and that being a disabled artist takes extra layers of resilience and fortitude, so we give support by connecting you with like-minds primarily through our social media networks. In a more limited capacity we will respond to email requests for information and advice.”
EXCLUDED UK
Who: ExcludedUK is a grassroots volunteer-run not-for-profit organisation working towards bringing about an end to the exclusions in the UK Government’s Covid-19 financial support measures across all employment statuses, circumstances, professions and industries. These exclusions have led to significant disparities within the support offered, resulting in unfairness, injustice, discrimination and severe hardship for those affected
What: As an organisation, we aim to play a crucial role in facilitating support and assistance on multiple levels, both for now and into the future. The wider effects of the pandemic may be far-reaching and long-lasting and we intend to continue our efforts to provide ongoing broader help and support.
FUEL
Who: An independent producer in the UK’s live performance sector. They have created upwards of 160 projects with over 60 artists experienced by more than 500,000.
What: Fuel are behind the Self-Employed task force created to represent the self-employed theatre workers during the COVID -19 crisis.
“The aim of the Freelance Task Force is to strengthen the influence of the self-employed theatre and performance community. It will create ongoing points of connection between freelancers, organisations, funders, and government and amplify the voice of the self-employed in the conversations to come about how we manage the response to and recovery from the Covid-19 crisis in the performing arts sector.”
GRAEAE
Who: Graeae is a force for change in world-class theatre, boldly placing D/deaf and disabled actors centre stage and challenging preconceptions.
What: “Membership of #WeShallNotBeRemoved is free, open to all individual D/deaf, neurodiverse and disabled creative practitioners and disability focused organisations operating in UK arts, museums and film.”
INC ARTS UK
Who: “We are a not for profit limited company whose mission is to diversify the workforce of the creative and cultural sector.”
What: “We work across advocacy, talent development and business development. Our business focus is on the ‘teams behind the scenes’: those who work in roles off-stage, supporting the creative talent. We work across performing arts (music, dance, theatre), visual arts and heritage (museums and archives).”
JULIE’S BICYCLE
Who: Julie’s Bicycle is a London based charity that supports the creative community to act on climate change and environmental sustainability.
What: “We believe that the creative community is uniquely placed to transform the conversation around climate change and translate it into action.
We provide the creative community with the skills to act, using their creativity to influence one another, audiences and the wider movement. We run a rich programme of events, free resources and public speaking engagements, which contribute to national and international climate change policy development.”
MARCH FOR THE ARTS
Who: March for the Arts is a Liverpool based collective dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of the arts. We champion those who work in arts industries. We campaign positively about the power of the arts to improve lives.
What: During the COVID-19 emergency a small team of theatre professionals got together to create March for the Arts. At first, the project was a physical demonstration to campaign for fair funding, but it soon became clear that a more long-term plan was needed.
OPERA UK
Who: Opera UK is for anyone working and participating professionally in opera in the UK. Opera UK is for individuals, freelancers and organisations at all scales.
What: Opera UK aims to become a responsive sector support organisation which will evolve and develop according to the needs of the UK’s opera community. Over the next six months we will be working out what members want from a sector support organisation. We can’t do this without you.
Opera UK has launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a determination to future-proof the opera sector and improve its sustainability.
If there were ever a time for us to collaborate and communicate as an industry, it’s now. Opera UK will help to facilitate that.
POWER PLAY THEATRE
Who: “Power Play is an award-winning activist theatre company. We use guerrilla-style immersive theatre and data activism to combat gender inequality in UK theatre.”
What: “Power Play runs studies and campaigns to provide theatre activists with a clear, nuanced picture of how inequalities are operating. It is almost impossible for gatekeepers to target a problem that nobody fully understands: without the data, it is also challenging to keep track of progress.
Our study into Gender at the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe was the first of its kind worldwide to investigate gender at the Fringe’s career-level. This was produced alongside a campaign spreading the already-existing facts and figures. We are currently working on two much bigger studies, to continue building a picture of how gender impacts career progression and industry culture.”
STAGE SIGHT
Who: A collaborative network of organisations and individuals working in theatre and the performing arts to to promote an off stage workforce that is more reflective of our society today, inclusive of ethnicity, class and disability
What: “We ask members to commit to making a practical change and to share their progress and learning. Our members include individuals, organisation, sector support bodies and unions, who have committed to over 180+ initiatives to implement practical change. Initiatives aim to improve and change existing ways of working across 3 key areas, in order to create a more inclusive sector; (fall into three areas):
- Recruitment: Changing recruitment practices to become more open and inclusive
- Reaching out: Raising awareness of and improving the visibility of off stage roles to the public
- New pathways: Developing new learning and training experiences
Stage Sight offer:
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A comprehensive list of our members’ initiatives, detailing the practical changes they are implementing
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A collection of case studies offering evaluation on projects for you to learn from
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Networking opportunities with other Stage Sight members
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Access to relevant resources and guidance
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Learning Forums available on our website
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Lobbying on behalf of the sector
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Providing platforms for members’ voices, projects and networks via our social media
We must ensure that, when our industry returns to strength, it does so because it includes everyone, inclusive of their ethnicity, class and disability.
Tète a Tète
Who: “The future of opera; producing company and festival host at the centre of the explosive new opera fringe”
What: “We have worked with over 2,500 freelance artists over 20 years to bring their dreams of new opera to life, more than 500 productions all of which you can watch online on our website. Pretty much any freelancer with an interest in new opera has come under our wing at some point. New and emerging artists always welcome.”
Tonic Theatre
Who: “We offer performing arts and cultural organisations the practical support and guidance they need to move from where they are now to where they want to be”
What: “Tonic supports theatre and the arts to achieve greater gender equality, diversity and inclusion. Since 2011 we have been driving tangible change across theatre and the wider performing arts and creative industries. Through a range of programmes, resources, training, tools and events Tonic has demonstrated that meaningful sustained change can happen. The uniqueness and effectiveness of our approach have led to our services being utilised by a broad spectrum of organisations across the UK and beyond.”
#WeShallNotBeRemoved
#WeShallNotBeRemoved is an intersectional UK Disability Arts Alliance, formed as an emergency response to the pandemic.
#WeShallNotBeRemoved is a forum to advocate, to campaign and support D/deaf, neurodivergent and disabled creative practitioners and organisations through and after Covid19. The aims of the alliance are:
– To ensure a sustainable future for disability and inclusive arts in the UK through and after the pandemic
– To amplify the voices of D/deaf, neurodivergent and disabled creative practitioners & disability arts organisations at a time of crisis for the arts and for disabled people
– Membership of #WeShallNotBeRemoved is free, open to all individual D/deaf, neurodivergent and disabled creative practitioners and disability/inclusive focused organisations operating in the UK’s creative industries with over 700 members.
WHAT NEXT?
Who: “What Next? is a movement that brings people together to debate and shape the future of Arts and Culture in the UK.”Who:
“What Next? is a movement that brings people together to debate and shape the future of Arts and Culture in the UK.
”What: “Our Vision: Arts and Culture play a vital role in creating a more equitable society.This will be achieved when:
- All people have access to arts and culture, and the sector reflects the full diversity of our communities.
- The arts and culture sector takes greater ownership of its public sector role, improving quality of life for all
Our Mission: What Next? brings people together to debate and shape the future of arts and culture in the UK.”
“What Next? is comprised of 30 chapters operating across the UK, who each meet regularly in their own local community and together at quarterly meetings. All are supported by a small core team working a total of 3.5 days a week and a Steering Group of sector leaders.
What Next? meetings are a place where people come together to share, debate and take collective action on issues facing the local and national cultural sector. Meetings are typically 1 hour long and frequently have guest speakers to share a particular perspective on a topic. The ethos of the meetings is to engender open, positive and inclusive conversations with Chatham House rules.”