29 September 2023
Northern Ballet has had to make the difficult decision to enter into negotiations to reassess the amount of live music that accompanies its touring productions from April 2024. The entire arts industry has been heavily impacted by rising costs across the board, with inflation, the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine causing drastic uplifts in the cost of everything from energy bills to set materials to the transportation costs associated with taking a production around the UK. Due to these mitigating factors we have had to take certain steps - there have been redundancies within the company, and a reduction in touring over the past year - however, it has become clear that we can no longer continue with our traditional touring model and we will need to explore different options if we are to continue to bring world-class narrative ballets to audiences throughout the country. We fully believe in the power and importance of live music and where we can, it will remain an integral part of our productions, but with deep regret we cannot maintain it at every venue. We are currently in discussion with the musicians, the Musicians' Union and Arts Council England to explore what a new touring model could look like for Northern Ballet. It remains our mission to create world-class new ballets, develop the next generation of talented new voices and share the joy of dance with audiences around the UK and we remain grateful to Arts Council England, Leeds City Council and our supporters for the funding and support that we receive.
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