This new fund, worth £660k, will support at least 33 exceptional individuals over 12 months with awards of £20,000 to adapt their approach to making and sharing live work. It is for artists, creatives and producers with no more than ten years’ experience, based anywhere in the UK, whose practice pre-Covid-19 focused and relied on live performance. This includes those with artistic/creative practices based in music, theatre, opera, circus, dance, live art and performance as well as those who work in the gaps between these disciplines. Around half of the funding will go to music creators.

Awardees will also be able to call upon Jerwood Arts expert staff for advice and introductions, and established artist/creative mentors and other experts will be available to support career development, answer discipline-specific questions and signpost opportunities.

Possible activities might include:

• Testing and experimenting: for example with new ways of workshopping, rehearsing, composing, creating and devising
• Developing new skills: for example in digital tech, techniques, methods
• Developing new networks: for example practice specific, peer-learning and support
• Developing new relationships with audiences: for example, exploring ideas about audience engagement
• Possible outcomes could include:
• Created new work and collaborated with others in new ways
• Found new ways of working within Covid-19 restrictions
• Created new and safe spaces for new live performance-based work to happen, including outside
• Set up and/or supported new artistic/creative communities, made new connections and shared learning and discoveries with peers
• Created a bold new direction for your practice, including setting out new lines of enquiry or research focus
• Changed the scale of your work, downsizing as well as scaling up
• Deepened your skills and understanding of the role that digital can play in your practice
• Re-conceptualised what you think of as your audience and how to engage with them
• These suggestions are not exhaustive and we encourage you to propose the right ideas for your practice.

They welcome applications from individual artists, creatives and producers, and those who have an established collaborative practice, who:

• Are freelance/independent artists/creatives*
• Have live performance at the heart of their practice, including in music, theatre, opera, circus, dance, live art and those who work in the gaps between these disciplines.*
• Think of their practice as including one or more of the following (in alphabetical order): acting, choreographing, composing (primarily for live performance), devising, designing (set, sound, video and lighting for the stage/live performance), directing, facilitating, movement work, performing, producing, writing (primarily for the stage/live performance).
• Have a professional track record with their practice in the arts and have worked professionally within the last 18 months. This includes the track record of a group if applying collaboratively. We anticipate that many will have struggled to find paid work during lockdown and may not have examples from their practice in the last nine months.*
• Are no more than ten years into beginning their professional artistic/creative practice at the time of applying. This means they consider the beginning of their professional artistic/creative practice to have started after November 2010, and no later November 2019, unless there has been a career break for health or care reasons.*
• Are based in the UK and have the legal right to work in the UK, and have the intention to continue residence within the UK until January 2022. You do not need to have British nationality.*
• Have a professional track record with their practice in the arts and have worked professionally within the last 18 months. This includes the track record of a group if applying collaboratively. We anticipate that many will have struggled to find paid work during lockdown and may not have examples from their practice in the last nine months.*

Deadline 

5pm, Monday 16 November

All applicants will be notified of the outcome on 10 December 2020. For unsuccessful applicants, the email will contain general information about the response to the fund, trends we found and the process we used to make decisions. They will then be able to request specific written feedback on their application by 6 January 2020. This feedback will be a summary of the assessment against the criteria above. Please note, with the Christmas/New Year break and our small team, we will endeavour to send individual feedbacks by the end of February 2021.

https://jerwoodarts.org/opportunities/live-work-fund/