The Waterside Theatre in Derry may reopen in September
The Arts Council NI has issued a comprehensive guidance manual which provides an extensive range of practical measures that will enable performance spaces including theatres, arts centres, galleries, studios and arts hubs to reopen to the public safely and in compliance with current NI Executive and UK Government guidelines and regulations.
Taking its title from lines of a poem by Northern Ireland poet Miriam Gamble, In The Bubble of Our Making: Reopening the Arts in Northern Ireland, covers all aspects of reopening, including risk assessments, staff training, capacity considerations and special provisions so audiences can be reassured that all the appropriate measures are in place and the environment they are entering is safe.
The guidance was commissioned from SLUA Event Safety Consultancy and sets out the protocols, adjustments and equipment that will be required by venues to maintain social distancing and protect the health and wellbeing of audiences, performers, staff and participants.
A section within the manual, titled ‘creating work’, offers guidance for organisations, arts groups, individual practitioners and everyone engaged within the arts in taking steps back into working together safely to present public performances.
The Waterside Theatre in Derry has already said it will probably not curtain up until September.
The Millennium Forum has cancelled this year’s Christmas panto until 2021.
Roisin McDonough, Chief Executive of the Arts Council NI, said there is “an enormous appetite” for a return to live arts.
“We want to make sure that our venues have the most up-to-date guidance that will allow them to safely open their doors and welcome back audiences,” she said.
“We are also keen to see arts organisations continue to develop the astonishing aptitude they have shown during the lockdown for adapting to circumstances and finding novel ways of reaching out to audiences.”
Roisin added: “We can use this experience alongside the new guidance to expand our horizons and re-engage audiences in different ways, in different shapes and in different places. Out of the current challenges could emerge an altogether new and complementary model of how we make and present the arts in Northern Ireland.”
The guidance comes after it was announced that Belfast’s Grand Opera House would be forced to delay its reopening and cancel the annual Christmas pantomime.
The theatre shut in January ahead of the pandemic and lockdown to undergo a major restoration and development project, and was due to reopen in November in time for the panto season.
To download the manual, In the bubble of our making: reopening the arts in Northern Ireland, visit www.artscouncil-ni.org
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