We are delighted to announce that Arts Council England has renewed our funding as a National Portfolio Organisation, awarding us £325,794 per year, totalling £1,303,176 for the period 2018-2022.

This maintains the level of support we have received from ACE since our 2014 award of £977,382 for the three-year period 2015-2018.

Yorkshire Dance received the news early this morning, as did all of Arts Council England’s existing and new National Portfolio Organisations.

Today’s award will allow us to continue providing critical talent development for emerging artists, delivering a region-wide strategy for dance development and providing life-changing opportunities for young people, adults with learning and physical disabilities and for older adults.

For the next four years we will continue to work with artists and communities across the Yorkshire region.

Wieke Eringa, our Artistic Director and CEO, says of the decision, “We’re clearly very pleased and grateful to receive news of this award, and its validation of the amount, quality and reach of our work across Yorkshire.

“This is no time for complacency, though, and we’ll continue to work hard at developing alternative funding and income-generation to support major projects such as our Juncture festival, bringing world-class work to Yorkshire under the curatorship of leading artists. We’ll strive to be resilient in the current climate of uncertainty and anxiety.

“We’re grateful that we’ll be able to continue working with artists and communities, and the many companies and individuals whom we support in so many different ways.

“This is an exciting, outward-looking moment in the company’s life, as we create a new dance work for Hull UK City of Culture 2017, as we play a leading role in Leeds Dance Partnership, embark on the European ‘Performing Gender’ project with organisations in Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Croatia, and as we look ahead to the possibilities of Leeds being named 2023 European Capital of Culture.

“This award gives us confidence to make significant contributions to the UK’s artistic environment through such major cultural landmarks and through our less visible work in the heart of diverse communities across Yorkshire.

“We’re very glad that Arts Council England sees the value of all that we’re committed to achieving over the next four years. We particularly welcome this decision as evidence of its commitment to increased allocation of funds to arts organisations working for – and with – communities outside the capital.

“We are watching anxiously as news emerges from our partner organisations in dance and other artforms, around Yorkshire and across the UK, and extend our best wishes to them all.”