Arts Council Cuts Anjali Dance Company’s Regular Funding

Despite acknowledging the high artistic quality of the work, Arts Council England announced on Friday that from April 1 2008 it will no longer make an annual grant to Anjali Dance Company. 

Based at The Mill Arts Centre in Banbury, Oxfordshire, Anjali is a professional touring dance company whose dancers all have learning disabilities.  It was one of the first of its kind in the world and currently enjoys an enviable reputation for producing some of the most creatively challenging and engaging dance in its field of work.

The Company’s Board of Directors have recently undertaken a major planning and review process and have transformed the management and governance of Anjali over the last eighteen months.  Mike Westwood, Chair of the Board, commented, “The Board and senior managers have worked hard to build the kind of effective and efficient organisation that the high professional standard of the work deserves.  We are severely disappointed that ACE-SE have chosen to ignore our recent achievements in this area and appear to have based their decision on out of date and inaccurate information on the Company’s past managerial performance.  Anjali’s work with people with learning disabilities nationally and locally in Oxfordshire is vital and ground-breaking.  If ACE wish to support excellence and promote diversity then they couldn’t find a better vehicle than Anjali Dance Company.”

Anjali is one among many of the country’s arts organisations who have suffered in this unprecedented round of cuts.  Many of these companies will have to close although, for the time being, Anjali will not be one of them.  The regular funding from Arts Council England South East is around 10 – 15% of Anjali’s turnover and so its loss, in isolation, will not be sufficient to force immediate closure.

However, regular ACE funding is an endorsement of the company’s work and helps to lever in funding from other sources.  It is also a valuable contribution to the Company’s work in general and a significant sum that will be hard to replace.  More arts groups will be chasing less money and Anjali’s uniqueness can make it difficult to attract the interest of hard-pressed donors unable to take the time to fully appreciate the pioneering nature of the Company’s work.  Internally, the Anjali mantra is ‘seeing is believing’ because it is only when the work of the dancers has been experienced first hand that real engagement and commitment becomes possible.

Anjali’s Founder and Artistic Director, Nicole Thomson, received the news while working with the Company researching and developing material for a new show that Anjali plan to tour in the Spring of 2009.  Nicole commented “Although this funding decision is short-sighted and frustrating, the Company’s potential continues to intrigue, stimulate and inspire its members and supporters.  Artistically, it is a very exciting time for Anjali.  New dancers of tremendous promise are coming through into the main company and the new show will be a significant creative departure.  Anjali will continue its successful practice of inviting some of Britain and Europe’s best cutting edge and established dance and physical theatre practitioners to come to Oxfordshire to work with the Company’s dancers with learning disabilities.”

Although Anjali has been a regularly funded organisation for the last five years, during that period it has received more Arts Council funds through project grants, such as the current Grants for the Arts Scheme.  The project funds have always been vital for the creation and touring of Anjali’s shows and the Company expects Arts Council England South East to continue to invest in the Company’s work through this route.

Feb 4  2008

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