Arts Northern Rivers

Funding Round Now Open Round 1, 2025 The Ian Potter Cultural Trust - Emerging Artist Grants program offers grants of up to $15,000 to assist talented emerging and early-career artists in taking up professional development opportunities, usually overseas. The Trust's Emerging Artist Grants program funds nationally and supports individual artists practising across the spectrum of the arts, from visual arts to community radio, design to literature, conservation of cultural heritage to circus arts. https://lnkd.in/gVAgp7NK

Arts Northern Rivers recently hosted the Northern Rivers Dance and Physical Theatre – CATCH UP. It brought together over 65 dancers, dancemakers, dance orgs, physical theatre and circus performers, producers, theatre makers, venue managers, councillors and funding bodies to CONNECT!   Attendees came from every LGA in the Northern Rivers and beyond – The Gold Coast, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney to create new and strengthen existing relationships and to deeper understand the creative buzz happening in the region.   CATCH UP, appropriately began with a quick 7-minute movement/dance icebreaker, beginning with Kirilly Dawn leading a somatic, grounding session connecting to country, followed by GenkiMatsuyama who shared his hypnotic house dance practice, ending with Randy and Zoe from Bring A Plate Dance with an uplifting RnB dance off.   The best way to start a gathering! Josh Lowe and Steph Spiers – Theatre Network Australia (TNA) facilitated the event and shared the research, advocacy and support TNA offer independents and small to medium orgs, for a healthy, safe and relevant performing arts sector. National challenges and opportunities from the Independent Dancer Sector Report 2024 we highlighted. jane fuller – Arts Northern Rivers shared findings and recommendations from ANR’s Dance Sector Uplift Report aimed at revitalising and creating a sustainable and vibrant sector in the region.   ‘Firecrackers’ punctuated the day with 8 x 1 min brief presentations from industry game changers giving updates of projects, works in progress, new initiatives and ways to create partnerships and support artists in the Northern Rivers. The Farm – Gold Coast based contemporary dance and performance company creating bold, brash and insightful work.  Geraldine Haydee Balcazar Cabrela and Gabriela Green Olea – Part of the creative team of Bodies Hold Histories produced by PYT, Fairfield  PH(R)ASE – a new initiative for dance makers in the Northern Rivers supporting the creation of new works.  Golden Thursdays – A choreographic lab between dancers and performers living with Down Syndrome and dance artist allies.  Karul Projects – Queensland's premier contemporary Indigenous dance company with a focus to increase First Nations’ voices.  Sprung – A contemporary dance and community arts organisation with programs for emerging artists with disability and/or who are d’Deaf.  Wojak – An independent trans-disciplinary artist, designer, performer and dancer.  Flow Studio Collective – A home for movement arts, dancers and body-based practitioners, in Lismore.

Put this is the diary for acpf funding info! Appearing in Byron Bay at Lone Goat Gallery  Tuesday 29 October 10am-12pm Lone Goat Gallery 28 Lawson Street, Byron Bay

Super thrilled to be hosting this fabulous event/gathering to bring the northern rivers bulging dance/physical theatre together for the 1st October in Mullumbimby to connect and share each others updates and projects. Partnering with Theatre Network Australia and NORPA (Northern Rivers Performing Arts) with guests Critical Path, artists will deliver some firecrackers! Register to attend https://lnkd.in/gQidGbQe - creatives, makers and arts workers/producers all encouraged to attend.

Share your experiences and contribute to this understanding of how independents are working

Join our Pool of Peers! 🙋🏽♀️ https://lnkd.in/gyDcjQbi We are accepting applications for a three-year term starting January 2025. As a peer assessor, you will bring your expertise and knowledge of the arts to our grant decision-making process. Apply by Tuesday 6 August 👉🏽 https://lnkd.in/gyDcjQbi

#NAIDOCWeek is one of Blak Excellence and heaps of celebratory gatherings showcasing the incredible culture of Aboriginal Australia. Also a time of responsibility for non-Indigenous organisations and individuals to continue our genuine commitment as allies - to strive for equity within all our communities EVERY DAY. We need to do the heavy lifting and elevate First Nations voices every week, not just NAIDOC Week. #keepthefireburning #alwayswasalwayswillbe

We are super thrilled to be a recipient of the IVAIS and look forward to our Bundjalung Weaving project spreading across country for our communiites.

Hiring for our Northern Rivers region - MusicNSW

Disappearing Artists Living, working and being with people whose social and political positions are different to ours - and doing so without conflict - is one of the great challenges of modern times. It requires imagination, thinking outside the square, the practice of listening and the embrace of difference. But how do we learn these skills? An established artistic practice requires a combination of all these skills operating at the highest level with a capacity to communicate them clearly. As a society, we need to be in contact with and connected to artists for all the beauty and beautiful provocations they make and the social and cultural agency they possess. We need them in our lives, in our polity. The problem is they are disappearing, fast. I recently had discussions with a bunch of internationally recognised mid-career artists working across dance, theatre and visual arts. All were planning their exit strategy. They are a tiny sample of the most significant generational loss of experience, practice and reputation in our artist-population. In my networks, a general observation is that around 25% of Australian artists have been lost over the past five years. There is no money to support them. Last week, Bec Mac added to the never-ending story about the financial precarity of artists. Surveying a new report from Australia Council for the Arts (now Creative Australia), she states the mean income of an artist in 1986–7 was $26K. Today, 36 years later, it’s $23K. If wages had kept up with inflation that figure would be over $77K.  In real terms, that is a decrease of around 70%. In The Monthly, Alison Croggon, has just published an essay on the dying small and independent theatre community that spawned this year’s Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion winner, Back-to-Back Theatre. Croggon maps out in great detail what many of us have been arguing for years: the arts are broken in Australia and artists are simply disappearing. The essay contains a conga-line of disarming statistics from the same Report reflecting the parlous conditions of this community. Creative Australia is the major source of funding for independent arts projects in this country. Comparing 2010-2011 figures with 2022-2023 figures, Alison cites an 88% decrease in funding for grants awarded to artists by the agency. It is a cogent examination of the wilful neglect of artists through a conscious, persistent withdrawal of direct funding. In the late 60s, the author Kurt Vonnegut promoted the view of artists as canaries in the coal-mine of democratic society, a built-in warning system for injustice and unfairness. His line was if they are struggling - or perishing - then so is democracy. Even if you’re not interested in art or artists, a healthy and robust civil society depends on them not just surviving but thriving. Without them, we’re in all sorts of trouble. Bec Mac Alison Croggon Creative Australia Jane Crawley GAICD Ben Eltham Jen Rae #artistsbitethehandthatstarvesyou