Community Arts in the High Peak
A huge thanks to everyone that took part in our Christmas making sessions in Buxton, New Mills and Glossop. Lots of lovely decorations were made and all the events had a really good Christmas feeling. Here is a selection of some of the work. Thanks to Glossop Library, New Mills Library, Buxton Library, Fairfield Surestart and Harper Hill Surestart for their support and to artists Katy McCall and Jim Medway for all their great ideas and hard work…..
Darkness is the second performance from the Youth Arts Network High Peak. Drama and performance from the young people of the Fairfield Dreamscheme, the Buxton Opera House Kaleidoscope Youth Theatre and young people from Three Gables and College Road Family Centres. All coming together at Peak Cavern, Castleton, High Peak.
Click here for the full story – or watch the results below!
Scene 1 – To be audio corrected!
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5 – the Grand Finale!
In our first module funded by Youth Music, we’ve been working at the Chapel PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) for 10 weeks since October, with MC Fox and music producer Diamond. The group have been writing lyrics and producing a track on Logic Pro and starting to work on their Arts Award files.
Here are some highlights of what they produced – performed on stage at Contact Theatre:
Click here for our analysis of the challenges of this programme
This is the short cut version of SuperChowder – met with critical acclaim!
We currently have two programmes funded through the different modules of Youth Music funding.
In the Elevated Risk module we are running the Music POD 1 at Chapel PRU for one academic year, and through the Open Programme module we have Tall Tales starting in early 2014 and running until October 2015.
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Our award from the National Youth Agency! High Peak Community Arts has achieved a national award in recognition of our commitment to listen to and act on the views of young people and involve them in our decision making processes.
The National Youth Agency Hear by Right Award was launched in 2010 to provide organisations that put young people’s voices at the heart of service delivery and development with the opportunity to gain national recognition for their achievements.
The Award is evaluated at three levels – Bronze, Silver and Gold – and we have achieved recognition at Silver level, one of only four organisations across the country to hold this level.
Our chair of trustees, Dawn Bryan commented “We are delighted that our work with young has received national recognition. It is vital that we listen to and act upon their ideas, so that they are empowered in all walks of life.”
We’ve challenged ourselves to find roles for young people in all areas of the organisation, from working in the office on Work Experience placements, to evening meetings where they decide on the direction of projects, and even active fund raising to keep projects going. It’s important for a young person to be able to take part in whatever way works for them – whether it’s a one off experience at a community event, weekly participation on a project or even developing leadership skills and helping their peers.
Billy Lancaster, a member of our Shout Action team, said “It is interesting to see how decisions are made, and sometimes it’s good to get your views across on things that you think are working or not working. It’s good.”
Fiona Blacke, National Youth Agency chief executive, says: “Embedding youth participation into the development of services is not only best practice, but vital to ensuring provision is relevant to local needs.
“Many congratulations on achieving our Silver Hear by Right Award, which really demonstrates your commitment to young people’s active involvement within your organisation.”
Here are the domes from our day in the yurt at Buxton Library, August 20th 2013
The work created was absolutely lovely and well done to all the children, young people, mums, dads, grannies and grandads that came along, thanks also to the lovely Nicky from Bowerwirks and to the library staff all of whom made a good event great
The finished product has been exhibited in the Wirksworth Festival and should be arriving at Buxton Library soon, so keep an eye out for it.
The project continues and we are still meeting and talking to people about their sense of community in Glossop, this summer we have been at Glossop Market, Glossop carnival and we were also invited to showcase the project at a research Council meeting in Edinburgh.
The showcase event really put into perspective the work we had done. There were loads of other projects showing their work at the event and there was even some time to talk to and visit some of the other stallholders showing their work. The project sat alongside some really good, forward thinking arts based research projects and it was great to see it there and have feedback from so many people. A round or two of Glossopoly was played and we now know for sure that we have created a bit of monster. Anyone locally who wants to use/display the game or the exhibition, just get in touch, we have some events planned in Glossop with the game as well, so keep an eye out in our diary section.
Click here to find out what Leicester University have this to say about the project.
Shout Action is our young film makers group, and since the success of their first film, Super Chowder, the group have been fund-raising to launch their next film idea. They have run events, spoken at local meetings and have used the website, Crowdfunder, to spread the campaign across their community through social media networks.
This week they are celebrating reaching their target of £500, with nine backers using the website to pledge their support. Shout Action member, Billy, said “We have run bag-packing, busking and had our own Super Hero fund raising day, and we are really grateful to everyone who has supported us.”
Boosted by their achievement, plans are underway to put together a schedule for pre-production, filming and completing the new film.
The group has already received a day of training, by Manchester-based film maker, Matt Kowalczuk, and the new funds will allow them to pay for him to visit the project at key points. Taking the group’s ideas and understanding, Matt’s expertise will guide them through potential pitfalls and show them new techniques to create a film of high quality.
Another Shout Action member, Mia, said “we enjoyed our first film making experience and got a lot out of it, in confidence and being creative. We want other young people of other ages around our town to have the same experience as well.”