The Stage

Theatre and dance get Scotland’s Vital Sparks

Published Monday 7 February 2011 at 14:31 by Thom Dibdin

Theatre and dance practitioners feature strongly in the latest £500,000 round of eight Vital Spark grants from Creative Scotland.

Funded through the Scottish Government’s Innovation Fund the grants are designed to encourage interdisciplinary creative collaborations through “experimentation, radical new work and innovative approaches to engaging with audiences”.

The actor and director Cora Bissett and playwright David Greig, who previously collaborated on Midsummer - a Play with Songs, have got £85,000 to collaborate with digital media artist Kim Beveridge - who worked with Bissett on Road Kill - and Edinburgh-based band Swimmer One. They will create a performance bringing together leading Scottish bands and writers, that will also be released as a compilation album.

Director Graham Eatough, visual artist Graham Fagen, who worked together on art installation Killing Time, and filmmaker Michael McDonough have received £99,953 to develop Crime and Punishment, a live event, installation and film that will form part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012.

Meanwhile, choreographer and performer Colette Sadler, visual artist Raphael Vincent and Austrian composer Noid got£58,000 to create a piece exploring the themes of strangeness and disorientation. Inspired by the films of Alfred Hitchcock, the piece is a co-production with the Southbank Centre and the Jardine D’Europe network of dance institutions and will tour Scotland, England, Belgium and Germany.

Stressing that the investment in talent is “integral to Creative Scotland’s role”, Venu Dhupa, director of creative development, commented: “The Vital Spark awards are a unique opportunity for artists to forge new partnerships and experiment with professionals working in other sectors. Intriguing mixtures of language evolution and music, film and promenade theatre or public sound performances will stretch individual creative practice and lead to ambitious new work.”