SMALL SPACES COMMISSION

This Commission is now closed.

Announcing a new commission opportunity from Chisenhale Dance Space in primary partnership with the Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, supported by Arts Council England.

Chisenhale Dance Space and The Marlborough Theatre are small organisations: small staff, small budgets, but with big communities, and big opportunities. It so happened that we realised that the Marly’s stage was roughly the same size as CDS’ small studio. And thus the Small Spaces Commission was born!

We wanted to create an opportunity for small-scale artists (not giant work for giant stages, or giant companies doing wonderfully giant things) to create new work. We wanted to work closely with the artists to support their practice and research alongside them. And we wanted to appropriately resource this work and support the first stages of a tour.

CDS and The Marlborough are thankful for the generous support of the Arts Council for this commission. We also thank our presenting partner, Rich Mix, for their support in the project.

 Criteria for commissions

1. Dancers, movement artists or live artists-who feel dance, movement or the body holds a key place in their practice, can apply
2. The commission must be to create or research new work that is small in scale – inclusive of number of participant artists – and will not exceed 50 min.
3. There must be a clearly developed curatorial plan for the dialogue events – how they shape your work and engage publics
4. Clear and realistic budgeting

Commissioning scheme

• £2,000 commission fee + materials and technical budgets
• 21 days of research and rehearsal space at CDS plus technical support
• Travel/Accommodation and 40 hours of rehearsal space at the Marlborough plus technical support
• Curatorial budget to create public facing “Dialogue Events”
• Travel costs from London to Brighton for residency pre-performance
• Documentation of process/product
• Producers support along the entire process

Dialogue Events

The commissioned artist will have the opportunity to curate two public facing events (of varied form and scope) inviting other artists/professionals into CDS to support their research. This might take form of invited lecture, symposium, performance, workshop or set of classes to support the artists’ inquiry.

Commission schedule & necessary documents

Application deadline: Wednesday 1 June, 2016
Decisions and initial artist meetings with producers: June
Development and rehearsal at CDS: July/August
Brighton Residency: September
Performances at CDS, Marlborough and Rich Mix: September/October

Note: Artists applying should note scheduling conflicts with Edinburgh Fringe

Questions regarding the commission should be sent to opportunities@chisenhaledancespace.co.uk, or by calling the offices between 10am and 6pm on 020 8981 6617.

Producing Partner:

Presenting Partner:

Funding from: