Associate companies

Art Asia

Art Asia aims to communicate the exciting experience of South Asian arts to the widest possible audience. Their work aspires to be entertaining, surprising and to celebrate their belief that the arts of South Asia are universal in their appeal. They develop the traditional, contemporary and experimental practice of artists in the UK and abroad by commissioning and showcasing the best, the unexpected and the unknown. 

Birmingham Royal Ballet

Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) is one of the world’s great touring ballet companies. Respected for its excellence, artistic innovation and social responsibility; the company connects with its audiences and communities in its home city of Birmingham, throughout the UK and across the world.

BRB shares the ambition of its home city of Birmingham to be recognised nationally and internationally as successful, innovative and culturally diverse by becoming a focus for excellence in dance development and performance.

Burnt Lemon Theatre

Burnt Lemon Theatre, with ambition burning in abundance, are a multi-award winning, female-led company who produce innovative new musical theatre. From riotous gig-theatre to electrifying musicals, they tackle sensitive stories with tenderness, punch and precision. 

City Eye

City Eye exists to inspire and promote film and digital culture in the region. City Eye support the community, arts organisations, individuals, emerging talent and established talent to achieve their film making and digital goals. This is done through a wide range of projects and activities. They include production work, education offering and screening programmes including Southampton Film Week. 

Dance Consortium

Dance Consortium exists to tour the best contemporary dance from across the world to local audiences across the UK and Ireland. The Consortium is currently made up of 19 member theatres from all regions of the country as well as the Republic of Ireland and includes Mayflower Theatre, Southampton.

Working together, the theatres jointly choose the international companies they wish to invite to tour the UK and Ireland, they share the costs of each of the tours and use their collective knowledge and expertise to ensure that the artists achieve the highest level of presentation to enthusiastic audiences.

Frantic Assembly

Frantic Assembly is one of the UK’s most influential and best-loved theatre companies. They are committed to making brave and bold theatre, telling stories in voices we don’t always hear and finding talent in places we don’t always look. Their ethos is one of collaboration, of empowerment and of the constant desire to improve. 

Northern Ballet

Bold and innovative in its approach, Northern Ballet is one of the UK’s leading and widest touring ballet companies, dedicated to creating stories that connect.

A champion for the cultural exports of the North, the Leeds-based Company is committed to bringing ballet to as many people and places as possible, under the leadership of Artistic Director Federico Bonelli. Northern Ballet’s Company of dancers performs a combination of its full-length ballets and specially created ballets for children at more than thirty venues annually.

Rambert

Rambert believe that to give brilliant and daring people the chance to inspire others is to give them the power to change the world for the better. As one of the world’s most diverse companies of dancers they transform everyday spaces by making dance that is awe-inspiring, adventurous, dynamic, and relevant, and taking it to our neighbourhood, the nation and the world. They want to hear the most exciting and radical ideas wherever they may come from and connect with brilliant and daring audiences and participants from all backgrounds.

Rambert is a National Portfolio Organisation of Arts Council England.

Spare Tyre

Spare Tyre is a leading artist and female-led participatory theatre company that recognises the creativity in everyone. They make art with adults whose creativity and citizenship is not recognised, developed or given the platforms others take for granted to address the questions of our times. Their focus and curiosity is to find new and inclusive ways to realise the ideas and experiences of participants, often in taboo-busting ways. They are intersectional by nature, anti-racist, inclusive, feminist, experimental and planet-loving by choice. 

Tangle Theatre

Tangle Theatre is an award winning touring theatre company championing African and Caribbean artistic excellence. Since forming in 2009, their work has changed the landscape for African Caribbean people. They have enabled over 100 isolated and disenfranchised communities and more than 2,000 professionals to access top quality arts and training, promoting cultural cohesion and tolerance. 

ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company

ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company was founded by Southampton born Kate Prince in 2002 and is best known for its work in theatre, creating full-length narrative dance productions strongly influenced by hip hop culture and music. ZooNation delivers an extensive programme of engagement and talent development, working with different communities and young artists to increase their skills, knowledge and confidence.