NSDF CREATES

For the first time NSDF is producing work. For each of the 64 years of the Festival we have been responsive: we send out selectors to see works applying to perform at our annual festival. 

Therefore the work we presented and the communities we fostered were formed before we got to them. So the good we can do in forming new creative communities and new ways of working is lessened. This year we are doing something completely different. 

In 2020 we started creating new work and new communities ourselves: to allow us to increase our reach and the diversity of our young artists. To allow us, after the long Covid winter, to force the spring. 

This matters because the bonds formed at NSDF are lifelong. There are people in their fifties and sixties who are still working with people they met whilst young at NSDF. What we hoped during the year was to make sure those relationships are formed by people from different backgrounds and locations: making it a truly national event. 

We are continuing now to work in partnership with leading theatre companies, as well as colleges and schools. We expect our partnerships will grow during the course of the next few years, as will the scope of NSDF CREATES.