A BRADFORD theatre company has become part of a major international arts project promoting talented young creative talent.

SBC Theatre (Stand & Be Counted Theatre) has been announced as part of LIBERTY EU, an arts initiative taking place across 10 European countries to develop the work of artists under the age of 30.

SBC Theatre is the resident company at Bradford’s Theatre in the Mill and an associate artist at Cast theatre in Doncaster.

This week saw a new website, promoting SBC Theatre and other LIBERTY EU collaborators, launched by ArtReach, a Leicester-based cultural development charity making art accessible to grassroots and diverse communities, and funders Creative Europe.

The website launch came at the end of Celebrating Sanctuary Week, highlighting the diversity, culture and talent that refugees and displaced people bring to the UK.

Twelve cultural partners across Europe are brought together via the new website - www.liberty-eu - to showcase a pool of 750 young artists. The aim is to enable artists and cultural professionals to work together until the end of 2022, commissioning at least 75 new works. The work these artists create will be presented at free access events across Europe.

Rosie MacPherson, Artistic Director of SBC, said that relationships between the UK and its European partners remain strong in the arts world, despite Brexit and the global pandemic.

She said: “We are thrilled to be a part of The ArtReach LIBERTY EU project. It not only gives us the chance to showcase our work to a European audience and continue to connect beyond borders, but it also helps us to promote the way in which we work with and for communities.

“We are so proud to be the UK’s first Theatre Company of Sanctuary and it’s perfect timing that the LIBERTY website will launch at the end of Sanctuary Week.”

Led ArtReach, LIBERTY is an innovative creative response to challenges facing the European Union. At a time of significant change for Europe, the aim is to focus on the positive impact of creative integration through art and culture and helping to forge a new sense of identity and place, locally and Europe-wide, with strong engagement from young people.

The LIBERTY EU arts project will see artists and other cultural professionals working together over three years, exploring themes of creative integration and identity, encompassing festivals, venues, training and conferences.

* For more information go to liberty-eu.com