Dash Arts Cafes, igniting curiosity

Arising from Dash Art’s international artistic research, Dash Cafés enable audiences to encounter excellent artists and thinkers. Dash Arts ask difficult questions, confront generalisations, and search for new insights through brilliant artists and open conversations with audiences. A shopfront for Dash Arts; the cafes are cross-disciplinary, international, and carefully walk a fine balance between professional production and informal participation.

Dash Cafés are a deeper exploration of some of the extraordinary and often lesser known ideas, films, books, music or performance that emerge through the organisation’s international research with experts in their field and diaspora communities in the UK.

The 80 Cafés to date have focused on diverse subject matters such as Soviet rock legends, Sami electronica artists, classical Arabic poetry and hip hop, live soundtracks to Georgian 1920s silent films, the changing face (and taste) of European cuisine, the impact of the war in Ukraine on contemporary artists and of the push for independence on Catalan film makers.  They’ve featured international journalists, writers, cooks, artists and thinkers including Oksana Zabuzhko, Orlando Figes, Philippe Sands, Olia Herclues and Timothy Garton Ash.

Have a look here at the October 2018 Dash Café, which explored ancient, historical, and contemporary myths as the conversation examines European identity and the role that theatre played in forming it.

What Does Europe Mean to You? from Dash Arts on Vimeo.

Thanks to a recent grant from The Space, Dash Arts has been able to invest in growing the digital reach of the Dash Cafés. They have a regular audience and a proven track record and are now looking to develop Dash Cafes beyond their London home at Rich Mix.

Central and Eastern European Review (2017) said of Dash Arts

“Particularly impressive at the Café is the expression of the artists’ ideas: the focus on art and culture to foster mutual understanding within a country and between nations…thought-provoking, captivating performance. I look forward to returning to Dash Arts.”

About this artist

Dash Arts creates artistic experiences that challenge the way we see the world. Founded in 2005 by Artistic Directors, Josephine Burton and Tim Supple, Dash Arts has emerged as a unique international creative force, producing new theatre, dance, music and art events in collaboration with more than 3000 exceptional artists from abroad and the UK. Dash Arts travels across continents to shed new light on great cultures and creates work through intensive periods of Research and Development.