dumfries community choir
Dumfries
We’re one of the biggest community platform in the South of Scotland, and we
work with our partners to use culture as means to improve the lives of our
community who are experiencing high levels of social and rural isolation. As a
unique social co-operative, we have over 170 voluntary members who contribute to
our social model through volunteering, sponsorship or advocacy. Anyone can join
our membership organisation. We have just taken over the Loreburn Hall in the
centre of Dumfries which is a temporary cultural space, including an 80 seat
cinema, 50 seat cabaret lounge, 50 seat black box theatre and a main hall with a
capacity of 1200 Our work takes place in schools, residential homes, cafes, car
parks, swimming pools and in all sorts of locations throughout our region. We
believe that there are barriers that prevent members of our community taking
part in culture and we do everything we can to deliver socially driven projects
that help to improve the cultural health of our region through our seasons of
projects which aim to increase resilience by connecting our community through
our cultural programmes and services. Our signature projects include a diverse
range of community arts based programmes and iconic place-making projects
including our annual winter festival, Carlisle Fringe, Dumfries Carnival, Le
Haggis, High Tea, Queer Haggis, Dumfries Youth Theatre, Dumfries Community Choir
and Producers of the Future. Every year we deliver more than 300 shows across
our festival programmes, as well as weekly community arts sessions to over 100
participants, creative industry training for emerging artists and the sector
across Dumfries & Galloway, and traineeships in producing across our major
projects. Our cultural skills development programme is one of the largest of its
kind in the UK. At the centre of our work is the belief that we can use culture
to connect people, we advocate that culture is good for our wellbeing and
health, and that art is a form of human expression and creativity. Our network
of over 100 associate artists and producers includes performance makers,
producers, artists and collaborators who believe in the power of social change.
