It's been an amazing month. The highly anticipated digital festival, Gŵyl 2021 took place, and it was lovely to be able to share some of the incredible gigs we filmed in our spaces with both established and up and coming artists from within the local community.
We kicked off March with a live streamed craft workshop for St David's Day which naturally featured daffodils! Local artist, Niki Fogaty showed everyone at home how to make colourful daffs using coloured paper and pipe cleaners and you can watch it again in the video below.
Keep an eye out for more of our live streamed craft workshops on our Instagram and Facebook pages.
Rambert: Rooms went on sale. This ambitious dance-theatre-film will be performed live from 8 - 10 April and features 17 dancers, 36 scenes and 100 characters.
It was World Book Day on 4 March and although we didn't have any costumes, we still had some great memories of when Roald Dahl's Matilda visited us back in 2018.
On 6 March we streamed another online family craft workshop, this time led by Caroline Richards who showed everyone how to make amazing nature-themed artwork using leaves and seeds.
Over the weekend of 6-7 March, we launched Gŵyl 2021 which featured pre-recorded performances from four of Wales' best-loved festivals, and included music, comedy, podcasts and more. Take at look at our Festival Of Voice website to watch gigs from our featured artists including Arlo Parks, Brett Anderson, and Cate Le Bon.
Radio Platfform were also involved in Gŵyl2021 producing a series of 'Next Up' live gigs in the studio with up-and-coming Hip Hop and Rap artists from South Wales.
They also presented a series of podcasts, Un Deg Pump covering a wide range of topics including Welsh identity, gender identity, global warming, and women in creative industries which are well worth a listen.
We also announced our Christmas 2021 show, which will be Disney's Beauty and The Beast and is on sale right now so grab your tickets.
On 17 March we welcomed Admiral into the fold as we announced they'd become our latest corporate sponsor. Like us, they're passionate about the importance of nurturing creativity in Wales, which makes them a perfect fit for us, the home of the arts in Wales. You can find out more in a blog from our Director of Development and Partnerships, Sian Morgan.
Life Hack returns on 8 April, this time in a digital format, with free, exciting workshops from professional creatives on Zoom for anyone aged 14-25yrs. We work with experts from theatre to dance, radio to film, comedy to design, and more so it promises to be a fantastic day and it's FREE!
This month we also put out our third call out for community artists (previous ones being for International Women's Day and Black Lives Matter). So if you're an artist or community art group with a striking idea for a piece of public art - we'd love to hear from you!
There’s no set theme, so this is an opportunity to celebrate, challenge, ask questions and have your voices heard. You can find more information about this project and how to apply here.
For Census Day 2021 we lit the building in purple to join many other iconic landmarks and buildings across England and Wales.
And a few days later lit the building in yellow to mark a National Day of Reflection - to remember those who have lost their lives during the Coronavirus pandemic, and to show our support for everyone affected during this time.
That's it for this month. If you'd like to support any of our exciting projects then please take a look at our Projects You Can Support page. Wales needs creativity now more than ever.
Many of the activities we're still able to carry out are a direct result of your kind donations, membership renewals and grant funding. We'd also like to thank the Arts Council of Wales, Moondance Foundation and Garfield Weston, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Clive and Sylvia Richards Charity and The Simon Gibson Charitable Trust for allowing us to continue supporting the creative talent, young people and communities that need creativity now, more than ever.