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An update from our Executive Director Louise Richards and Chair of our Board, Simon Wales

15th July 2020

We wanted to give you an update on our situation and our plans for the future in the context of Covid-19 and its effects on our activity.

Since the end of March we have been unable to deliver any of our touring or teaching work, but during this period we have been working closely with our venue and festival partners to establish what we will be able to deliver and when.

Our festival and outdoor work
The summer festivals and events we were scheduled to tour to have all been cancelled, so despite the announcement last Thursday that some outdoor performances can now go ahead, unfortunately this will not be the case for us. In addition, our dancers have been on furlough since April, so before we are able to tour, we will need to support them to regain their performance fitness. We’ll also need to invest time in rehearsals to prepare our productions for the high standard of performance our audiences expect from us and that we’re proud to deliver. This means that several weeks of preparation will be required in order to respond to any opportunities that may arise from the newly announced permissions around outdoor work. We are delighted that many of our festival partners have rebooked our outdoor shows for next summer, so there will definitely be lots of opportunities to catch one of our shows next year.

Our theatre touring
With many theatres not opening again until 2021, the tour of our new production Nobody, originally scheduled to start at the end of August 2020, is now planned to commence in February 2021. We are delighted that we have been able to reschedule virtually the whole tour to new dates and will announce the full Nobody tour as soon as we are able.

Education, participation & office
We are in the process of assessing when we will be able to restart our education activities and will let you know as soon as we have more information. Our office remains closed, with just a small team working from home, and this will continue to be the case until the end of October.

Our team
The financial impact of Covid-19 on Motionhouse has been devastating. The loss of all earnings since March due to the closure of theatres and the cancellation of public gatherings has equated to more than half of our annual turnover. Despite making deep cuts across all areas of expenditure, we have been forced to face our worst-case scenario and will sadly be losing several of our brilliant team. This is deeply upsetting as the people are what make Motionhouse the company that it is. We want to thank those team members who are affected for their understanding as we have gone through this difficult process.

The future
Despite the challenges, we are determined to survive and rebuild. We are waiting to see if we might benefit from some of the recently announced government rescue package for arts and culture and are planning for the return of our team ready to re-start creation and rehearsals in the Autumn. We are also very much looking forward to working with our venue partners next year for the Nobody tour.

With our sincere thanks for your continued support.

Help us plan ahead

To help us plan for delivering our activities again we have worked with our partners Indigo to develop a short online survey on how you feel about attending events again.

We’d be grateful if you would spare us a few minutes and take the survey now.

Your responses are anonymous, and will be used to inform our own planning. Indigo will only have access to responses for analysis and will not be able to see any of your personal information.

Help Keep Motionhouse in Motion

A big thank you to those of you who have donated to us in recent weeks – it means a lot to us and really does make a difference.

If you would like to find out more about supporting Motionhouse, go to https://www.motionhouse.co.uk/support-us/