Dancers 'devastated' as company goes bust

COLLAPSE COMES LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER GROUP WAS AWARDED OVER £200,00 OF LOTTERY CASH

- WILLIAM TELFORD

AN award-winning Plymouth dance company has gone bust, leaving dancers "devastated".

Exim Dance Company CIC had been one of the most successful and well-known dance organisations in the city, as famous for its community work as for its dance classes.

But it has revealed it is about to enter liquidation and can no longer continue as a going concern, just a year after announcing it had received more than £200,000 from the National Lottery.

Five staff members have been made redundant, and a number of freelancers are affected too.

Kaitlyn Howlett, one of the five dance professionals who worked for Exim, is now going through a redundancy process. She said: "We are devastated."

Exim operated at Stonehouse's Oxford House Creative Hub, but the building will remain open and run by its other lessee, Rhythm City Dance Studio, which is a completely separate company and totally unaffected by Exim's closure. It is hoped former Exim staff will be able to continue classes there as freelancers.

Rhythm City founder Chris Gilchrist said Exim's loss would be a major blow for Plymouth, and added: "Exim did amazing work and was an asset to the community. We were as shocked as everyone else was to hear what happened."