Dash Arts

Dash Arts Dash Arts makes new theatre, music, art and dance with international artists that bridge divides We are a small responsive charity.

Dash Arts creates exceptional artistic experiences that bridge divides across art-forms, cultures, languages and communities. Our international productions, live and digital events and education programmes expand the way we see the world. Led by our Artistic Director, Josephine Burton, we immerse ourselves in a particular culture, a question or a theme over an extended period of time to research,

create and produce new work. Over the last 15 years, we’ve created award-winning new work with over 9,000 artists and participants to audiences of over 350,000 across the world. Our partners include Sadler’s Wells, Edinburgh International Festival, Roundhouse, Brighton Festival, Lincoln Center Festival and Luminato Festival, Toronto. Major tours in the UK, Europe, Australia and North America have been widely acclaimed and led to numerous awards and nominations including Olivier, Evening Standard, TMA, Herald Angel and Dora awards.

What might an epic for our time sound like?Join Dash Arts and the Institute of Classical Studies this October for Songs ...
14/08/2026

What might an epic for our time sound like?

Join Dash Arts and the Institute of Classical Studies this October for Songs of Solidarity: Rewriting the Epic for a Migratory World - an evening of conversation, performance and new writing exploring how epic storytelling can speak to migration, displacement and belonging today.

Hosted at Senate House as part of Josephine Burton’s Practitioner in Residence at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study, the evening brings together Josephine Burton, Professor Fiona Macintosh and poet Leo Boix.

The conversation will be woven through with readings from new material created during the development of Songs of Solidarity, offering a glimpse into how lived experience, academic research and poetic imagination are becoming a new, polyphonic epic.

Thursday 15 October 2026
6–7.30pm
Institute of Classical Studies, Senate House, London

Come and see the work while it is still taking shape.

Book your place: https://ics.sas.ac.uk/news-events/events/songs-solidarity-rewriting-epic-migratory-world

📸 Firefly Studios

"Come, Sweetheart."Emma Hauck's extraordinary drawings are one of the starting points for The Degenerates, our new resea...
12/08/2026

"Come, Sweetheart."

Emma Hauck's extraordinary drawings are one of the starting points for The Degenerates, our new research project exploring art, creativity, mental health and the artists of the Prinzhorn Collection.

This month, we're taking you further inside that work.

Our August newsletter is out now, with a closer look at The Degenerates, a celebration of the conversations we've been having on OffScript, and an invitation into the research behind Songs of Solidarity.

Plus, the things we've been reading, watching and listening to along the way.

Sign up to our newsletter through the Dash Website

Image: Emma Hauck, “Untitled (Come Sweetheart),” Museum Sammlung Prinzhorn, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

05/08/2026

Take a peek behind the curtain.

Every month we share what we're making, what we're thinking about, and the conversations shaping our work.

If you're curious about theatre, visual art, history, politics, creativity, or the research behind new work, our newsletter is for you.

This month we're taking readers inside The Degenerates, our new research project inspired by the extraordinary artists of the Prinzhorn Collection.

Sign up via our website: https://www.dasharts.org.uk/

Image: My Eyes in the Time of Apparition by August Natterer (1913), Prinzhorn Collection.

Music:

04/08/2026

"She was a striking individual. Powerful."

Who was Leonora Carrington?

Painter. Writer. Surrealist. Visionary.

In the second episode of At Loggerheads with Reality, Josephine Burton and curator Vanessa Boni explore the remarkable life of an artist whose imagination was shaped by war, displacement, institutionalisation and an unwavering commitment to creativity.

Recorded at the Freud Museum, the conversation accompanies the exhibition Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal, offering a fascinating insight into Carrington's work, her enduring legacy and the ideas that continue to inspire artists today.

The episode also offers a window into the creative thinking behind The Degenerates, Dash Arts' new play inspired by the artists of the Prinzhorn Collection. As we develop the production, we're asking urgent questions about creativity, mental health, neurodivergence and who gets remembered in the history of art.

🎧 Listen Now: https://www.dasharts.org.uk/podcast-1/at-loggerheads-with-reality-part-two-leonora-carrington
🏛️ Visit the Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal exhibition at Freud Museum London https://www.freud.org.uk/exhibitions/leonora-carrington-the-symptomatic-surreal/

A taste of summer!This simple Ukrainian salad, created by Olia Hercules, was made live on stage in The Reckoning. Fresh ...
03/08/2026

A taste of summer!

This simple Ukrainian salad, created by Olia Hercules, was made live on stage in The Reckoning. Fresh tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, peppery radishes and plenty of dill – it's one of those recipes that speaks of long summer days and home.

As Olia writes:

"This is a salad pretty much everyone makes in Ukraine in the warmer months. When I eat it, synapses fire in my brain and my heart beats faster. To me this is my childhood, my Ukraine, and life itself."

We're sharing the recipe again while the tomatoes are at their best.

And as The Reckoning continues its journey with further development in New York this autumn, it feels like the perfect moment to return to one of the show's most memorable ingredients. More soon.

The Albion is almost closed. Last orders, London!Before we go, our Artistic Director Josephine Burton has written about ...
30/07/2026

The Albion is almost closed. Last orders, London!

Before we go, our Artistic Director Josephine Burton has written about what three years of Albion actually taught her - 800 speeches, more than 50 workshops, conversations with Billy Bragg, Hardeep Matharu, Caroline Lucas and many more, and one play about a country still trying to understand itself.

As the National Conversation asks people across the UK what kind of communities they want to build, Josephine's essay feels timely - a reflection on myths, belonging and why there is no single story of England. Only the ones we choose to tell together.

It's on the Dash Arts Substack and it's definitely worth a read. Read the full essay: https://substack.com//note/p-204285695?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=61vjxy

Our Public House closes this Saturday at Marylebone Theatre. Come to the pub before we call time.
Tickets: https://www.marylebonetheatre.com/productions/our-public-house

Want to add your own voice to the national conversation? Find out more at thenationalconversation.org.uk

30/07/2026

The Degenerates

An ongoing research project by Dash Arts, culminating in a vital new play by Hattie Naylor and Josephine Burton.

Music by Alev Lenz (feat. Nina Harries).

Find out more: https://www.dasharts.org.uk/the-degenerates

29/07/2026

"I had seen how the world was not the least like I thought it was... I stopped believing I was immortal in the madhouse. I realised I could die here." - Leonora Carrington

What happens when crisis transforms an artist's imagination?

In the second episode of our At Loggerheads with Reality podcast, Josephine Burton joins curator Vanessa Boni at the Freud Museum to explore Leonora Carrington: The Symptomatic Surreal - a remarkable exhibition bringing together Carrington's wartime sketchbooks, letters and Villa Pilar, shown publicly for the very first time.

Together, they trace Carrington's journey from N**i-occupied France to a Spanish sanatorium, exploring how creativity, myth and the unconscious shaped her work through a period of profound personal and political upheaval.

This conversation forms part of the research and development behind The Degenerates, Dash Arts' new play inspired by the artists of the Prinzhorn Collection, exploring creativity, mental health and the radical act of making art.

🎧 Listen now: https://www.dasharts.org.uk/podcast-1/at-loggerheads-with-reality-part-two-leonora-carrington

We're delighted to celebrate the release of ЖИВИ! (You Should Live!), the powerful new album from Mariana Sadovska and h...
23/07/2026

We're delighted to celebrate the release of ЖИВИ! (You Should Live!), the powerful new album from Mariana Sadovska and her trio VESNA.

Mariana created three of the songs for our production Songs for Babyn Yar, and we're thrilled to hear them find a new home alongside this extraordinary collection of music. Blending traditional Ukrainian sounds with bold contemporary composition, the album reflects on memory, resilience and the enduring power of song.

The title track, ЖИВИ! (You Should Live!), is inspired by the words of Ukrainian poet Olena Teliha, whose poetry was written in the early 1940s before she was murdered during the N**i occupation of Ukraine. Her voice, like so many explored in Songs for Babyn Yar, continues to resonate across generations.

Congratulations to .mariana and everyone involved in bringing this beautiful album into the world.

Listen via Bandcamp! https://besteunterhaltung.bandcamp.com/album/mariana-sadovska-vesna-you-should-live

Songs of Solidarity is our new theatre project, creating an epic for our time, an origin story and uniting tale for the ...
21/07/2026

Songs of Solidarity is our new theatre project, creating an epic for our time, an origin story and uniting tale for the vast and growing global population of migrants.

An epic, written and performed by migrants, in dialogue with leading academics, and drawing on the ancient traditions of Gilgamesh, the Aeneid and the Kalevala to tell the stories of displacement, belonging and survival that define our world today.

What might a new epic look like? One that celebrates the many voices, journeys and stories that shape our world and one that places the people living those stories at the very centre of the telling.

These are a few moments from the project's ongoing development, where ideas have been shared, songs have begun to emerge, and an extraordinary group of collaborators have come together to imagine what's possible.

Songs of Solidarity is a collaboration between and and we can't wait to share more. Watch this space.

Address

Unit 22, Toynbee Studios, 28 Commercial Street
London
E16AB

Telephone

+442073776606

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