Crescent Arts Centre
The Crescent Arts Centre is an arts centre based in a Victorian-era listed building in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It was founded in 1980, and the building was extensively refurbished between 2008 and 2010. The Centre hosts a wide range of arts and entertainment events, as well as classes in dance, music, verbal and visual arts, and community outreach programmes. The patron of the Centre is Paul Muldoon. Its facilities include a dance studio named after its late patron, the choreographer and Holocaust survivor Helen Lewis.Events
The centre also organises two major annual events; a dance festival in June and a literary festival in March/April.Refurbishment
The Crescent Arts Centre is situated in the Queens Conservation Area in the former Victoria College on University Road. In September 2008, then Minister of Culture Arts and Leisure, Gregory Campbell, announced the awarding of capital funding to allow refurbishment of the University Road site to get underway. The total cost would be £7.2million. The Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure provided £4.5million; the Arts Council of Northern Ireland £1.45million; the Heritage Lottery Fund £447,000; and the then Environment and Heritage Service £525,900. The Crescent itself contributed £236,000 and has appointed fundraising consultants to raise the rest.
