Our 2024 Creative Commissions

We are delighted to announce support for Somerset’s independent creative professionals and arts organisations, as part of our Creative Commissions programme, to develop cultural activity for the county’s residents.

Through our Arts Engagement & Outreach programme at The Octagon & Westlands, we are reaching and supporting artists across Somerset & the South West.  Professionals working across any artistic discipline can access a range of offers including free 1 to 1 mentoring, free creative studio space, extensive training & development workshops and our Creative Commissions programme to support the creation of new work in Somerset.

The Creative Commissions are designed to help us make the arts & culture accessible to rural communities, people experiencing deprivation, those facing mental health challenges, and the ageing population. The programme offers small commissions for professional independent creatives and companies at any stage of their careers to develop original work that can reach people living in Somerset.

For 2023-24, we received 17 project proposals for our Creative Commissions programme, highlighting the richness of Somerset’s professional creative workforce.  We are grateful to everyone who took the time to apply, our panel thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the proposed project ideas across Somerset.  We’re thrilled to announce that we are commissioning the following projects:

Caroline Rees | Hire a Ballerina
Short, intimate performances inspired by Swan Lake; the Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote or La Bayadere – for schools, residential homes, hospital wards & other community settings.

Vic Llewellyn | No One Is Listening
A live solo show that explores memory loss and the isolation this causes. It’ll be a platform for rural stories drawn from local Somerset communities, leading to a national tour.  An initial pilot tour will visit 6 venues in Somerset, Devon, and Berkshire, supported by a series of short podcasts.

Little Bulb | Listen Dance
An interactive, residency gig-theatre extravaganza that brings an audience together for a night of social dancing. With a genre-hopping live band, surprising theatrical interventions and plenty of room on the dance floor, this unique collective event creates space for everyone to celebrate their own relationship to dance.

Emma Randall | Tea at Two
Tea Dances with a difference for the over 55s in rural south Somerset, giving rurally isolated elderly people the opportunity to take part in Ballroom, Latin & other social dances.

MJ Gardner | Autopia
A public space for disabled/neurodivergent persons to explore, present and celebrate forms of creation. Utilising local interests of gaming, lego and storytelling, local neurodiverse collaborators will congregate over three days to create a performative curated showcase with an invited audience.

Wassail Theatre | Birthday Day
Touring a new show about family, agriculture and the ecology & economy of food working farms & outdoor community venues in Somerset, meeting audiences where they are, reflecting to agricultural communities something representative of their own experience.

Watch this space as we profile each project further over the coming months.