ARC manages the NEAD Residency Scheme on behalf of the North East Artist Development Network.
During 2015, 15 residencies will take place in 15 different venues across the region, each one offering development space and cash support to a North East artist or company seeking to develop a new piece of work.
The residencies are designed to provide an opportunity to work up an idea, with the support of a venue, to the point where is it ‘commission ready’ ie in a position to seek funding or other support to realise the work.
Host venues are:
• Alnwick Playhouse
• ARC, Stockton
• Arts Centre Washington
• Customs House, South Shields
• Dance City, Newcastle
• Gala Theatre, Durham
• Gateshead Arts Development
• Hartlepool Town Hall Theatre
• Live Theatre
• Middlesbrough Theatre
• Northern Stage, Newcastle
• Queen’s Hall Arts Centre, Hexham
• Seaton Delaval Arts Centre
• The Maltings, Berwick
• The Witham, Barnard Castle
The first five residencies awarded were:
• Big Girls Don’t Eat Soap, the company name for Ree Collins and John Kirkbride, will be resident at Alnwick Playhouse from 10 – 14 Feb 2015, developing work around the different facets of our personality.
• Eggman Theatre Company, led by Pip Chamberlain working with writer Allison Davies, will be in residence at Middlesbrough Theatre from 8 – 14 Jan 2015 and Arts Centre Washington from 19 – 23 Jan 2015, looking at the themes of loss, mystery, love, hope and belonging in Baggage, a devised exploration of the things we carry.
• Caroline Liversidge will be in residence at ARC Stockton from 9 – 14 Feb 2015, working with director Anna Ryder to develop ideas for her solo show, A Living, that questions the expectation and inevitability that work is something we will spend most of our time on this planet doing.
• Kirsten Luckins will be at Caedmon Hall in Gateshead from 26 – 30 Jan 2015, looking at the impact of the built environment on mental health, using as a central narrator a schitzophrenic whose auditory hallucinations are triggered by certain types of architecture and advertising.
• Luca Rutherford will be at Northern Stage from 16 – 20 Mar 2015 working on her solo show, Learning How to Die, which is not about bereavement or grieving but the actuality of death and dying; and how an acceptance of death defines how we choose to live.
At the end of each residency, the artists will share their progress during the week with venue programmers, providing an opportunity to reflect on their work to date and identify next steps.
The remaining 10 residencies, which will take place between April and September 2015, will be announced in early February.