Individuals and cultural Calderdale groups given lifeline thanks to Arts Council

The Arts Council has announced that more than £5m has been awarded to over 700 individuals and independent organisations through its Covid-19 emergency response package.
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With support from the National Lottery and Government, 553 grants totalling £1.2m have been awarded to individual artists and creative practitioners across the region.

And £3.8m has been awarded to 185 organisations across Yorkshire.

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The Piece Hall, Annapurna Indian Dance Company in Halifax, and Thingumajig Theatre in Todmorden. are three of 738 that have benefited from the £5,072,847 fund.

Annapurna Indian Dance companyAnnapurna Indian Dance company
Annapurna Indian Dance company

Announced in March, the Arts Council’s Emergency Response Package was designed to help alleviate the pressures faced by artists, creative people, arts organisations, museums, and libraries over the summer.

Nicky Chance-Thompson: “We are really grateful to the Arts Council for their £35k emergency support at this time. In conjunction with other support, this additional funding has meant that we could keep the Piece Hall going during this crisis and are able to reopen in the coming months.”

The Arts Council has awarded 292 grants totalling £657,098 to individual artists and creative practitioners across West Yorkshire.

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Across the North over £537,600 has been awarded to individuals from a Black and minority ethnic background, with £614,300 directly supporting D/deaf or disabled applicants.

Crucially, many applicants from underrepresented groups were receiving Arts Council funding for the first time.

Pete Massey, director in the North at the Arts Council, said: ““The cultural sector across West Yorkshire has an incredibly rich cultural and creative ecology full of fantastic artists, theatres, galleries and festivals so it’s heart-breaking to see so many of them negatively impacted by the pandemic.

"I am however really pleased that we have been able to fund so many individual artists and organisations through our Emergency Response Funds and I hope that our support will enable them to tackle the immediate challenges that they face during these unprecedented times.

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"Thanks to players of the National Lottery we have been able to support a really wide range of applicants across West Yorkshire including a significant number of first time applicants to the Arts Council, many of whom are from underrepresented groups.”