Matthew Bourne's NEW ADVENTURES AND RE:BOURNE Join Arts Council for Annual Grant, Thru 2018

New Adventures & Re:Bourne are delighted to have been announced as joining Arts Council England's national portfolio. The company will receive an annual grant of £1,294,000 between 2015 - 2018. This support will enable Matthew Bourne's production company and charity to work together strategically for audiences, artists, young people and emerging talent.

The organisations will join the portfolio in the South East and will work closely with venues and organisations across the region, and with the local authority in Brighton, to deliver regional programmes with national reach. Following the continued success of the current tour of Lord of the Flies, a national programme for emerging community dance artists will be based in the South East region.

As a national dance company, New Adventures and Re:Bourne will continue to build on their important touring relationships with Sadler's Wells and our expanding partner venues from Aberdeen to Plymouth with our current and future repertoire.

Matthew Bourne, Artistic Director says "After 26 years of making work for audiences across England, today's announcement is a timely endorsement of all we have achieved and all we can achieve in the future. Our aim is to continue to make world-class productions and projects for audiences, young people and emerging artists in the South East, across England and around the world. We will do this with the exceptional team of collaborators and dancers that make New Adventures and Re:Bourne unique organisations dedicated to creating work that strikes the balance between the highest artistic standards and an experience that is inspiring and accessible."

Robert Noble, Director of New Adventures says "Arts Council England have been a major partner of New Adventures for many years and today's announcement provides the stability and security for us to realise Matthew's ambitious projects for the next three years. Joining the national portfolio also indicates our role as a national dance company and our strategic importance to the dance landscape in England."

James Mackenzie-Blackman, Executive Director, Re:Bourne says "All of us at New Adventures & Re:Bourne believe dance-theatre is for everyone and want to encourage audiences and communities from all backgrounds to experience our work. Our current production of Lord of the Flies, that brings together professional dancers from our company with young people, is exceeding all our expectations in terms of audiences, participation and reach. By the end of the current tour, it will have engaged approximately 10,000 boys and young men as participants and performers and 60,000 people as audiences. We look forward to creating more work of this kind over the coming years."

Arts Council England has been a vital supporter of our work over many years. Today's announcement packages together funding at a similar level to that we have received through project grants in recent years. Joining the national portfolio is an endorsement of our strategic importance to the dance landscape in England and our critical role as a major developer of dance audiences.

Over the last decade, Matthew Bourne has created 11 full-evening programmes of ambitious revivals and new works for New Adventures. Since 2003, New Adventures has performed to over 4 million people across the world. New Adventures tours from Aberdeen to Plymouth, reaching more places and more people than any other dance company in the UK. Between 2008 and 2013, the Company gave 1,600 performances, averaging 35 weeks of performances a year.

Re:Bourne, the charitable arm of New Adventures, invests in the future of dance and is a crucial mechanism for finding and nurturing the next generation of dancers, choreographers and audiences. Re:Bourne runs the bi-annual New Adventures Choreographer Award that is establishing itself as one of the sectors most sought-after opportunities for finding, mentoring and developing new choreographic talent. Since the inaugural award in 2012 applications for subsequent awards have increased by over 200%. Established in 2008, Re:Bourne has delivered over 700 workshops to more than 22,000 young people across the United Kingdom and around the world. In addition, it has delivered over 25 bespoke projects in partnership with venues, dance companies and community organisations.

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