Making work that serves our community extends to our artists and who we invite into our working community.

I trained in the North East and after returning to work in the region following my postgraduate study in 2019, I was struggling to find dance employment within my own postcode. The North East arts community is unique. It is small, it is dynamic and it is diverse. But it is known that for dancers that finding performance based employment opportunities (without being the creator of your own work) are not vast. So a key part of my work is to prioritise offering work to those who are living or who have trained in the North East. Providing opportunities to local artists within the NE region creates a full circle effect, increasing the dynamism of the local arts sector. It also just makes sense. If I want to create work that has prominence and meaning for our local population, the artists need to understand this experience too. But it feels greater than providing employment. The aim is to create opportunities to enrich, develop and connect with the artists we work with. To create a legacy of support for them and to connect them further with the local cultural industry. Without fertile soil, one cannot grow and we want to be a contribution to the soil, creating platforms for others to work, discover their voices and feel encouraged to share and contribute back to our local arts ecology. It is also about finding new connections, exploring cross-arts collaborations and developing new practices and partnerships with local organisations. It is about building on our practices, striving to be better, creating braver spaces for artists to thrive and expanding our framework to make sense for our people.

Create locally, employ locally, engage locally, support locally and relate globally - it just makes sense.