In-keeping with Government guidelines, in late September we are planning to:
- Class Programme: Stream a selection of our classes ONLNE
- BA Dance Students: Offer studio space to small bubbles of BA dance students
- Deda Staff: Bring staff back to work in a measured capacity
- Artist Residencies: Use our theatre for artist residencies
- CUBE Café: Explore how to reopen our CUBE Café | Bar to the public with a click and collect service
- Derby well: Derby Festé will re-emerge as #DerbyWell including a trail of art installations across the city launching on 26 September.
Here are some words from our Director Steve Slater about our re-awakening!
Thank you for your patience while we move cautiously towards welcoming you back into the building. We wanted to let you know that Déda has not been still while in lockdown, we have been busy making plans and dreaming dreams – reviewing and reassessing what we do and how we do it to make us even better, more diverse, more accessible and more incredible for when we return.
Locked down in our homes, isolated from our friends and families, we all embarked on what was to become the “New Normal”. Although difficult, we have acclimatised to these sudden and historic changes in our lives, adjusting and accommodating to the new rules, learning to cope with the distance forced upon us and between us.
The arts industry was one of the first to respond to the lockdown, taking its social and moral obligations to heart, working in close proximity to make work that the public enjoy in environments which unite us. We’d gone from having the power to respond to the world, to decode existence and to interpret society to being able to do little and stand back to allow the key workers to perform their many miracles, standing before us on the front line.
Now we are looking ahead and relishing the opportunity for the arts to step up and begin to help. The challenge facing the industry is immense; how to return to a world of making and creating when the rules dictate that to stay safe, we must stay apart? Each arts institution, organisation and artist must find a way back, a way to re-connect, a way to play a part and give expression.
With that being said, it will take a little while longer before we can invite you back into our building. Our priority is that you remain safe while with us, and to that end we will first get our systems running safely before we publicly open the doors for you later in the autumn.
In line with the start of the Universities academic year, the building will operate as a creation and meeting space for the University of Derby students and for Hubbub Theatre Company to work from their office space. Déda staff will also return at this time in a measured capacity – working in rotational shifts from home and office to limit numbers of people in the building.
Our class programme will start slowly, with online streaming of a selection of classes to begin with while we assess the feasibility of live class participation. The theatre will be used as a residency space for artists while restrictions on numbers persist – possibly until April 2021 - in doing so we will be providing valuable space for artists to create new work for the future.
We are investigating the options around operating the CUBE Café Bar again, initially in support of students and staff – but hopefully soon after, for the general public in line with a future announcement that the building is safe and ready for you to enter. We are also exploring options around providing food to various companies, schools and community groups as a click and collect service.
Following government guidelines restricting mass gatherings, Derby Feste has re-emerged with the #DerbyWELL campaign, which will include an arts trail around the city launching on 26 September. The programme, initiated by Déda and other Derby arts organisations, will support artists back into work, encourage people back into the city centre in a safe and socially distanced way and reunite the city’s communities with plenty of opportunities to get involved. For more information, and to find out how you can take part, visit Derby Festé website, sign up to our newsletter and follow Déda on social media.
We would also like to thank everybody who has supported Déda over the last few months. We are grateful to all of our community for the kind words you have sent through, for taking part in our online events and for donating to our Covid Crisis Fund. If you would like to donate and help support us at this difficult time, head to https://bit.ly/2AmMTEU.
We hope that you are all safe and well and look forward to seeing you at Déda once again sometime in the near future. We want to see you more than anything, we want to engage, and we want to move you with our classes, projects and programmes. The Déda that is to come is only the start of something amazing and we’re excited to see where we’ll be in the months and years ahead.
Watch this space….
Steve Slater
Director, Déda
Photo Credit: Hazel E Hutchison
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