HOME Annual Review 2020/21 an Extraordinary Year THANK YOU! HOME ANNUAL REVIEW We’D Like to Say a Big Thankyou to All Our Supporters
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HOME Annual Review 2020/21 An extraordinary year THANK YOU! HOME ANNUAL REVIEW We’d like to say a big thankyou to all our supporters. FUNDERS WELCOME It’s a cliché to say this has been an work, we switched events from live We even managed to have some unprecedented year – but it’s also to livestream, took our engagement amazing moments in the building for FOUNDING SUPPORTERS true. At the end of 2019/20, HOME programme online and we reached out the few weeks we were open. It was was enjoying its most successful year to our partners to see what we could do amazing to experience the ambitious, ever. We had nearly 900,000 visits, together to support those who needed exciting live programming, and the around 7,000 events taking place and us. We changed our commissioning number of sold out screenings and CORPORATE SPONSORS DIRECTOR’S CIRCLE Ann Quaife Michael Orland over 20,000 people engaged from our processes to make sure we took into performances showed just how much Auto Trader Tom and Jo Bloxham Lesley Rhodes Jeff O’Toole communities. account the time and effort freelancers people wanted to get back and Bruntwood Brenda & Arnold Bradshaw Gary Shepherd Gareth Palmer put into pitching to us, and with the experience culture in person. Clear Channel UK Meg & Peter Cooper Martin Smith Victoria Pinnington On 17 March 2020, when we closed help of everyone who donated to LWC John & Penny Early Carole Such Helen Pleasance our doors ahead of the first national This annual review contains just some our Response Fund and the Empty Q-Park Brendan Pittaway Andrew Thompson Joe Plumb lockdown, that all came to a sudden of the highlights of a very unusual year Seats campaign we managed to keep Manchester Airport Raj & Reshma Ruia Sue Thurston Lili Porter halt. It was the biggest shock we’ve – there’s so much to be proud of that System One Travel Jane & Stephen Sorrell Nick Tyson Paul Pryke investing in programming and artists. Timpsons Susan Webster Gabriele Reinsch experienced, and I don’t think anyone it was impossible to fit it all in. I’d like Transport for Greater Manchester SILVER FRIENDS Philip Roberts would have blamed us for hunkering We also took time to reflect on the to say thankyou to every colleague, Weightmans PATRON CIRCLE Gerard Allen Susan Rodgers down for the duration. But that’s not diversity within our organisation, artist, contractor, audience member, World Duty Free Simon and Shalni Arora Richard Armitage Malcolm Rolph the approach we took. inspired by the Black Lives Matter supporter and friend who has made WSP Andy Beaden Laura Barry Christine Rolph movement. We had a lot of important it possible. We couldn’t have done it Martin Boulton Michael Biggs Eva Salgado Sanchez Instead, we doubled down on our and challenging conversations without you. CORPORATE MEMBERS Marc and Jennie Duschenes Maria Bota Anthony Seitler commitment to artists, to audiences, to internally, and committed to being anti- Eversheds Sutherland Chris Jeffries Chris Brown-Colbert Dee Sheehan freelancers and to the cultural ecology Dave Moutrey (International) LLP Ashok & Anna Kallumpram Nicholas Clarke Nick Smith racist and pro-equality through the way of our wonderful city of Manchester. First Manchester Alison Ross Mike Cooke Paul Sweeney we work and the work we make and Director and CEO HFL Building Solutions Roger & Margaret Helen Coupland Rachel Tebay We continued to commission new present. Slater Heelis LLP Stephenson Alison Crush Julie Thomas TBWA\MCR Florencia Donagaray Samantha Thorpe PLATINUM FRIENDS Ceri Dornan Tim Turner PROJECT SUPPORTERS Georgina Amica-Carpenter Colin Edgar Alison Vaughan Acción Cultural Española Zac Bearshaw Keith Etherington Beverley Wallace Beaverbrooks Charitable Trust Richard Bircher Thea Euryphaessa Ben Williams Jonty Claypole Joanna Bircher Noel Fagan James Woodhead Richard and Joanna Bircher Stuart Bishop Anthony Galpin-Howarth Dave Woodyer Edwin Fox Charitable Trust Derrick Hodnett Pravin Gorajala CONTENTS Esmée Fairbairn Foundation Fiona Hudson Jack Gray A huge thank you to those 4 Homemakers: A new take on online theatre Evan Cornish Foundation Steve Jennings Amy Gregson who chose to donate Film Hub North Malcolm Pitcher Prue Griffiths the cost of their tickets, 6 Live to livestream Garfield Weston Foundation Robert Sherard Liam Harper supported our Response Instituto Cervantes George Whalley David Harrison Fund and contributed 7 Future 20: From gallery exhibition to virtual reality JMK Trust Kirstie Hartwell when our seats were 8 Our Plague Year and slow digital John Ellerman Foundation GOLD FRIENDS Ian Hemmings empty due to social Jonty Claypole Simon Bennett Peter Huddleston distancing. Thank you for 10 Black History Month at HOME and online Nora Smith Charitable Settlement Jessica Bowles Anthony Jones supporting us during an 11 Pushing the boundaries Office for Cultural & Scientific Affairs - Gary Bramwell Roisin Joyce incredibly difficult year. We Embassy of Spain Alison Bunker Saara Kavanagh couldn’t have got through 12 A moment of joy One Manchester Lesley Chalmers Alex Kimani it without your support. PRS Foundation Michael Cripps Steve Leader 15 A little help from our friends Relief Fund for Victims of the Loss of Marla Cunningham Natalie Lebouleux If you would like to make a 16 How HOME supported freelancers during the pandemic Flight 4U9525 Stuart Dick Polly Low donation, you can do so via Richard & Joanna Bircher Henry Hall John McAuliffe our website or by texting 18 HOME’s £26 million economic impact on Manchester Savannah Wisdom Debbie Hargreaves Stuart McCracken HOMEMCR to 70085. 20 HOME in pictures The Granada Foundation Peter Hargreaves Gwynneth McManus The Harold Hyam Wingate Foundation Rodney Hill James Medd 21 ¡Viva!: A festival of two halves The Leri Charitable Trust Karl Jackson Daniel Mills 22 Insane Animals: A year on The Oglesby Charitable Trust Alex Lourinha Ciara Minnitt The Peter Kershaw Trust Garry Martin Paul Moore The Rix-Thompson Rothenberg Ruth McCann Andy Mycock CREDITS Foundation Derek Munday Emma Nattrass-Daniels Editor Kat Harrison-Dibbits. Copywriting Nancy Hopkins. Editorial Assistant Chloe Beale. Design Gary Clarke UK Theatres Trust Chris Paul Daniels Lindy Newns Photography Drew Forsyth, Paul Karalius, Chris Payne and companies W O Street Charitable Trust Monica Pearl Helen Nicolson Young Manchester Louanne Pellowe-Bailey Thomas Nuhse HOME is a trading name of Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd a company limited by guarantee. Registered in England and Wales No: 1681278. Registered office 2 Tony Wilson Place, Manchester, M15 4FN. Charity No: 514719 © 2021 2 3 HOMEMAKERS A NEW TAKE ON ONLINE THEATRE HOME’s series of new lockdown commissions, Homemakers, challenges and expands the idea of what online theatre can be, with artists creating films, games, creative prompts and more. When the country locked down in March mediums. Ad Infinitum created a commissions, including Chris Thorpe 2020, performing arts venues were triptych of video shorts titled A Small and Yusra Warsama’s game, Tell Me. amongst the first to close their doors. Gathering, having never previously Designed to be played by two or more Across the cultural sector, there was an worked with film. Using mobile phones, friends, Tell Me explored personal immediate recognition that there were home cameras and torches, the end narrative, truth and fictions through a tough times ahead for both venues and result was a collection of darkly comic, series of prompts. Players chose from artists. twisted tales of loneliness that perfectly a list of questions, then answered on captured the anxieties of the nation in behalf of the person they were playing Very quickly, HOME’s team realised Spring 2020. with, leading to unusual and surprising that to support artists we needed to conversations. find a way to commission them to Ad Infinitum’s Nir Paldi said: create new work despite the lockdown. “Homemakers was such a liberating, Two commissions, Plaster Cast Theatre’s And furthermore, we saw an artistic quick and inspiring response to the Homelands and METIS’ Love Letters opportunity. Could we use the pandemic lockdown. It was like a ray of creative to a Liveable Future, used the postal and our collective experience of ‘locking light, a blissful break from the horrid service to interact with audiences in an down’ as a creative prompt to redefine work of cancellation and unproducing. analogue way, while Seriol Davies and the concept of live art, producing works It was our first go ever at making a Matthew Blake’s Actualquest took the that have a lasting, digital legacy? film and taught us so much. There was form of a “choose your own adventure something about seizing that moment game” and David Ellington used the One of the most ambitious Homemakers works The initial release of five fully-funded in time that just made you take the leap short film medium to his advantage with Homemakers commissions for artists was James Monaghan’s Let’s Spend the Night and get on with doing something you the poignant and political BSL poem to create new works at home, for Together, an online durational performance have never done before. The support Liberty. audiences at home became available to we received from HOME was incredible, running from sunset to sunrise last June. Here the the public in early May, just eight weeks Many of the works engaged with the compassionate and generous. The artist talks about how working online challenged after the lockdown. Works ranged from experience of lockdown, from Bryony experience changed us: film and video performances and interactive Kimmings’ I’m falling in love with you him to think about theatre differently. digital work - something we had little games, to handwritten fantasy scenarios and it’s making me do stupid things, experience with pre-pandemic - is an “Online theatre is not new - think Blast Theory’s Kidnapped (1998) and and silent gothic horrors, all to be a sharply accurate portrayal of the exciting new area for Ad Infinitum that I’d Hide You (2012) or Gob Squad’s Room Service (2003/2020).