It may be getting darker and colder outside, but we are already planning for the lighter days next Spring! Spring Forward 2026 applications are now open.

Friday 27 February – McMillan Theatre, Bridgwater
Friday 6 March – Tacchi Morris Arts Centre, Taunton
Friday 20 March – Tacchi Morris Arts Centre, Taunton
Thursday 2 April – McMillan Theatre, Bridgwater

Sign up your dance group to be part of the most exciting and inclusive platform in the Somerset dance calendar, bringing together hundreds of dancers of all ages to perform on a professional stage.

Applications are open until 28th November 2025, forms and application guidelines can be found here.

We look forward to welcoming old and new dancers back to Spring Forward in 2026!

Any questions about the shows or the application process can be emailed to springforward@takeart.org

More rural touring dance than ever before!

For the Rural Touring Dance Initiative (RTDI), the summer months have been spent preparing for a busy autumn touring season ahead. There will be nine performances this autumn across the region from four very different contemporary dance companies, all with post-show participation or Q&A opportunities. As if that’s not enough, we’re also hosting one week-long residency and sixteen workshops including one community-cast and a curtain-raiser project!

Mesmerising dance duo Ekleido (Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser) will spend a week in Somerset working on their stunningly physical show with influences (and lighting) from the underground club scene to re-work it for rural touring to venues where it may not even be possible to make a performance space fully dark. This funded residency enables them to spend time ensuring the show is just as visually amazing in a village or school hall, community café, or even a library, as it is in a traditional theatre or nightclub!

The residency will take place at community arts space Create#@8 in Shepton Mallet. Working with Dance Ambassador Louise Lappin-Cook and arts charity Make the Sunshine, we’ll be sharing opportunities for local people, including a group of young dance ambassadors aged 9-18 to take part in workshops and open rehearsals and get to know the company while they’re in the area.

The week will finish on Friday 25th October with a performance in Croscombe Village Hall starting at 7pm hosted by our second Somerset Dance Ambassador and veteran Take Art promoter Richard Cronin. We’ll be inviting Croscombe regulars, people who’ve met the company during the week, and all Take Art fans to celebrate the newly rehearsed work. Keep an eye on our website for tickets in the very near future.

For anyone who doesn’t make it on 25th October, the show will return to Shepton Mallet on its Spring tour to be performed in a central Shepton venue on Friday 29th May 2026. With three week-long residencies, ten shows and post-show events and at least seven workshops, including two extended community performance projects still to come in the Spring, we’re really making the most of the opportunities provided by RTDI with more activity than ever before in the final year of this round of funding.

Buckle up for a bumper year of rural touring dance ahead!