Newcastle-based graduate dance company Fertile Ground looks back on its pilot project (September 2014 to April 2015) and forward to the next (in 2016).
“The Fertile Ground pilot, supported by Grants for the Arts,” said Alex Croft, Dance Officer at Arts Council England, “provided a much needed performance and talent development opportunity for emerging dancers from or based in the north east, using a model for a graduate performance company found nowhere else in the north.”
The four graduate dancers (Kayleigh Fisk, Holly Bellamy, Alys North and Alicia Meehan) from Teesside and Sunderland Universities, Laban London and Mapdance Chichester who formed the ensemble were supported by an administrator / assistant producer from Northumbria University with the later addition of a Teesside graduate to manage education and outreach.
Five new works were created: Shields of Bone by Eleesha Drennan, A New Chimera by Tom Dale, NOW by Dora Frankel, Land by Alys North and On the Darkened Wing, which was devised by the company with costumes by students from CCAD (Cleveland College of Art and Design).
Fertile Ground toured to nine venues, previewing at The Maltings Berwick-upon-Tweed on 12 February, gave fourteen performances (including 3 school performances), reached 1985 audience members and 488 workshop participants with 909 workshop attendances at 69 sessions.
This year, FG has been awarded Arts Council funding of £63,000 towards the new project, 2nd planting, with a generous addition of £14,000 from founding patron Gillian Dickinson Trust as well as further contributions from The Bowes Museum, Bede’s World, arts venues and schools.
2nd Planting is a six-month project in which a new company of five dancers will create and tour a triple bill, Dancing the Road.
These works explore the increasing infringement of the public space, the darker side of digital technology and a nature / art-art / nature investigation of the myth of Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu God.
This new programme will première on 11th May at Arts Academy, Bede Campus, Sunderland College before going on to tour to at least 14 different locations across the north east.