Sir Alistair Spalding: cut the travel red tape and invest in artists or risk starving our cultural sector

Next week, an extraordinary international show will arrive at Sadler’s Wells after a journey that began on a beach in Senegal more than two years ago. Rite of Spring / common ground[s] brings together 38 dancers from across 14 different African countries, to perform Pina Bausch’s legendary work The Rite of Spring. It is Sadler’s Wells’ internationalism writ large, a collaboration between Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des Sables in Senegal, The Pina Bausch Foundation in Wuppertal, Germany, and Sadler’s Wells in London.

This was a project halted by lockdown, but reborn in a new post-covid era, in a world where we are adjusting to the long-term ramifications of both Brexit and the Covid pandemic. And what a post-Brexit statement to make: the dancers will be fresh off the plane having performed in Copenhagen, Madrid, and Adelaide over the past nine months.