Late last year Forest Fringe announced the launch of the Pass the Torch fund – a grant to help support one or more new projects to blossom in Edinburgh in our absence – and today we are completely delighted to announce that the recipients of that fund will be DICE Festival and Live Art Bistro.
The Pass the Torch fund is our attempt to help sustain the kind of experimental, alternative space at the festival that Forest Fringe nurtured over the last decade; a home for artists that might not otherwise find a home at the fringe. The money for the fund was raised through a combination of donations from Forest Fringe, a small grant from Live Art UK, and donations to a party we hosted at the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh last summer, where many of our favourite artists performed.
We were delighted to receive over 30 applications, each very different but all full of generosity and invention. In the end we chose to support DICE Festival and Live Art Bistro as they were two projects we felt truly reflect the spirit of Forest Fringe whilst finding their own entirely distinctive ways of making space for themselves within the festival. Whilst the support that we are able to offer is not enough on its own for these projects to happen, we hope that our contribution can help them build a foundation in the city and the festival; a beginning from which they might develop in new and unforeseen ways in the years to come.
From DICE FESTIVAL:
“DICE Festival is a festival of chance. Here are the rules:
1. On each night, there are 6 acts.
2. When, and if, each act will perform, will be determined by the roll of a die.
3. The rolling of the die will be completed by the evenings host, the Dice Master.
4. The die will be rolled 6 times.
5. Each act risks performing 6 times, and not performing at all.
6. We like the number 6.
We are making space for art to exist, art that doesn’t always fit into the expectations of the fringe. We are making space for artists of every level to come together. And we are a festival trying to make a home for us all amongst the chaos that is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The DICE Team are Becky Plotnek, Colette Patterson and Kaiya Waerea.”
From Live Art Bistro:
“Live Art Bistro are delighted to be awarded the ‘Pass The Torch’ funds and will use the money to support artists to present work at a 1 Day Takeover of ZOO Southside in partnership with ZOO Venues. Live Art Bistro is an engine room for Live Art practices in Leeds and the wider region, with an artists led perspective and our unique way of doing things we hope to create an event that promotes ‘artistic risk’ over ‘personal risk’. The funds provided by Forest Fringe have come at a crucial time in our planning stages and will help us to offer a more comprehensive package of support for the artists we work with through an open call process that will launch in late February.”