Job Description
The Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI) is a national project which supports dance artists and rural promoters to make great dance performance events happen in rural spaces. The project is run by The Place in partnership with Highlights Rural Touring, National Rural Touring Forum (NRTF), Sonia Sabri Co. and Take Art. In 2022 the project was awarded grants from Arts Council England and Esmee Fairbairn Foundation to continue to support dance touring from 2022 to 2026.
We are seeking artists to take part in this project. This is an opportunity for you to tour existing work to rural locations during autumn 2024 and spring 2025.
Previous artists supported by the project include Joan Cleville, Joshua Nash, Lost Dog, Protein, Aakash Odedra Company and Uchenna Dance.
We expect to select eight shows to feature on our national ‘menu’ of dance productions. Rural programmers will select shows they want to programme from this menu.
Out of the eight shows we expect that at least one work will be suitable for families and one work will be made for digital, either presented online or within a live event. We expect to negotiate the fee for the digital work on a case by case basis.
We encourage applications from artists with a range of lived experiences and from a range of backgrounds, and we particularly welcome applications from those who are underrepresented in the dance sector, including artists from Global Majority backgrounds, artists who identify as LGBTQIA+, disabled artists and artists from lower socio economic backgrounds.
If you plan to apply, and there are opportunities to see your work live from July to September 2023 then please invite us to see your work by emailing The Place. We cannot guarantee that someone will be able to attend.
Please read carefully through the important information below, including the application guide before applying
This call out and application guide is available as an audio version on Soundcloud here:
How to Apply
To apply, complete the application form, which you can access here by Midday on Thursday 7 September 2023.
You can download a PDF or Word Document to see the application questions below. We recommend writing your questions in the word document, and then copying your answers over into the form.
Please also complete one of our Equal Opportunities monitoring forms. The Equal Opportunities monitoring form is optional and will help us to monitor whether our Call Outs are reaching groups that are currently underrepresented in our programmes. These forms will be reviewed by our HR team and will not be seen by the selection panel.
If you require any support during the application process including the writing of the application or if another format or application process would be more accessible for you, please contactThe Placeand we will make the appropriate arrangements. A unformatted version of this call out for text readers can be found here.
An online Q&A session for anyone considering applying will be held on 17 Aug 2023 6pm. This session will be BSL interpreted and have captions available. The recording will be available to watch after this date.
Shows will be selected by a panel made up of a rural touring promoter and representatives of three of the RTDI partners (The Place, NRTF, Take Art, Sonia Sabri Co and Highlights Rural Touring).
Artists will be notified of decisions during w/c 10 Oct 2023. Feedback will be offered to all unsuccessful applicants.
What Happens if you are Selected?
What do participating artists receive?
● A fee per performance of £1,000 - £1,500 including VAT, depending on scale and cost
● A bursary of up to £2000 to support the costs of adapting the show for rural touring
● The opportunity to apply for a residency within a RTDI venue to adapt your submitted production or develop new work
● A funded space on An Introduction to Rural Touring residential course
● Marketing & producing support
● Support to develop the accessibility of your touring show
● Support to minimize the environmental footprint of your show
Rural Touring Dance Lab
You will attend the Practical Introduction to Rural Touring for Dance Lab in w/c 13 November 2023.
This Lab is compulsory.
The Lab is an opportunity for one representative from the selected companies to meet people from all aspects of the rural touring ecology and think about how we can make better dance shows for rural venues/village halls and audiences.
You will learn about how rural touring schemes and promoters work, think about how to adapt your work within the constraints of touring to village halls and non-traditional spaces, and how to make shows for communities in rural locations.
Using the Theatre Green Book, you will look at how to minimize the environmental footprint of your touring show, and develop ideas for how to make your work accessible on tour. This lab will be accompanied by online resources, which you can share with other members of your company.
Accommodation and travel for the lab will be covered by RTDI and you will receive a fee for taking part in the lab of £400.
If you are selected for the menu with an online work depending on the format of how it will be shared you may not be required to attend the lab, but you may if you wish, and you will be paid a fee if you attend.
Adaptions
If required, you will make adaptations to your show so that it is suitable for rural touring.
There are bursaries of, on average, £2,000 available for artists to make adaptations to shows to make
them more appropriate for the practical challenges of rural touring. If you are selected to tour your show, we will talk to you about whether this is required for your show.
National Dance Menu
The menu will be distributed to rural touring schemes in January 2024. A ‘menu’ is a selected group of shows which is offered to rural touring schemes and their local promoters, to choose which show they want to put on in their venue.
A Producer and Coordinator will broker potential interest from schemes and local promoters alongside the availability of the dance companies they are interested in. There is no guarantee that your show will be chosen for touring. However, we expect that each show on the menu will be booked for four to eight performances.
The touring fee is subsidised through the scheme, and will be negotiated on a case by case basis. Companies selected for menus so far during the life of the project have received fees ranging from £ 850 - £1500 per performance.
We expect that in 24/25 fees will range from £1,000 to £1,500 per performance. This is inclusive of VAT and also includes any wraparound activity linked directly with your show ie. pre and/or post show activity – workshops, should be costed separately.
We aim to book touring for each show which minimizes travel and reduces the ecological footprint of each tour.
Key Dates
Key dates
- Deadline for applications – midday on Thu 7 Sep 2022
- Artists notified that they have been selected for the 2024/25 menu - w/c 10 Oct 2023
- Practical Introduction to Rural Touring Lab w/c 13 Nov 2023.
- If you have any questions email The Place's production team here.
