DU Dance and Beyond Skin to take part in UK-Germany international collaboration programme

In 2021 Beyond Skin and DU Dance started to collaborate with German community arts organisation, Die Villa, based in Leipzig, to develop a youth cultural exchange project entitled, Ode to Earth, based around the theme of environmental issues.

The project was one of seven recently announced as part of Cultural Bridge, a new pilot funding programme co-produced by Fonds Soziokultur, Germany, in partnership with the British Council, Arts Council England, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Arts Council of Wales/Wales Arts International, Creative Scotland, and Goethe-Institute London, which advocates bilateral community arts collaboration.

The programme aims to enable social change through the medium of diverse art forms and community arts practices. It promotes cross-border cooperation between the UK nations (Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and England) and German cultural institutions in various disciplines and participative methods.

A series of videos were produced from 2021/22 project (see below)

In 2023 Beyond Skin,  DU Dance and Die Villa were successful in receiving an award to begin Phase2 of the project.

Cultural Bridge Phase1 2021 press release.

Cultural Bridge Phase2 2022 press release.

Blog by Beyond Skin project manager Kira

Blog by DU Dance project manager Sheena

Follow all of the projects’ progress and latest updates on Twitter and Instagram using #CulturalBridge