Our response to the COVID-19 crisis

At Dance North we want to assure everyone we work with – artists, participants, audiences and colleagues – that we are taking the health and, other challenges in relation to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, seriously. We continue to monitor and act on governmental and NHS advice and have already taken steps towards keeping our staff and the people we work with as safe as possible. This includes:

  • Paying our staff whether they’re working from home or self-isolating
  • Increasing our sick pay policy to include 2 weeks of additional paid sick leave
  • Paying freelance staff for existing contracts if and where possible
  • Putting in place a comprehensive risk assessment of all our activities including our office working time
  • Assessing the necessity of, and minimising, staff travel
  • Making daily assessments on our activities – performances, classes, workshops, RISE dance festival, residencies, networking events
  • Looking at innovative ways in which we can still reach our audiences and participants in classes

We are adhering to official advice from the government, local authority and sector bodies. This is, of course, subject to change – we will respond, react and adapt to these changes and keep everyone informed through our website and social media channels.

The Scottish Government has published guidance and information, including links to travel advice and regular updates on the number of cases.  The UK Govt has published a Coronavirus Action Plan and the BBC have a useful explainer. The Creative Industries Federation and Creative Scotland have their own advice online. 

We are working with other organisations to share information and best practice and to help each other – we believe working together is better than working apart – even if we don’t meet in person.

RISE Dance Festival 2020
With so much unknown we have decided to cancel Rise 2020, and not as previously stated postpone the festival until later in the year.  Our commitment is to minimise the impact on artists and freelancers of this and other related decisions and as such, all contracted Rise 2020 artists and crew will be paid their agreed fee.  We are extending an invitation to all artists booked for Rise 2020 to consider bringing their work to Rise 2021 – planned as a three day festival over the first or last weekend of May 2021 (tbc). Read more

Classes
We have stopped all our direct contact work with older people and our youth dance classes. Please see the ‘DO’ pages of our website for updated information on all our classes and participatory activity.

If you have any questions, concerns or would like further information on any of the above, please email us info at dancenorth dot scot