‘The impetus that the Fellowship has given me, both professionally and on a personal level is incredible. This time for recharging, reflecting and learning has brought first and foremost a total change of perspective. The discovery that “knowing thyself” is not a selfish enterprise, nor a sign of a big ego, but that it is what it takes to get to the next stage in life and at work. This has been an immensely useful unexpected outcome. What an amazing journey it has been!’

2010/11 Clore Fellow

The Clore Leadership Programme is currently inviting applications for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Fellowship in Arts Participation and Engagement.
The purpose of this Fellowship is to develop a leader who is strongly committed to increasing access to, and enjoyment of, the arts.

Candidates for the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Fellowship should demonstrate a commitment to, and experience of, encouraging people to be actively and practically involved in the arts, as a maker and/or participant. Relevant experience could include, for example, leading an organisation focused on engagement and participation, holding a senior role in the learning department of a cultural institution, or extensive freelance work as a specialist in this area.

The Fellowship Programme aims to shape emerging creative leaders from across the cultural sector through in-depth learning, tailored as far as possible to the needs, aspirations and circumstances of the individual Fellow.

The structure of the programme includes:

• residential courses
• an extended placement for a period of approximately 3 months
• individually-selected training, mentoring and coaching.

Fellows can choose to take a period of six/seven months away from work and receive a bursary while undertaking their programme, or continue to be attached to their place of work, with their employer being compensated for the sustained periods when they’re away.

The closing date for all applications is 12 noon, 24 February 2012.  For further details on the Programme and to access the online application form, please visit www.cloreleadership.org

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Fellowship in Arts Participation and Engagement is supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

The Clore Leadership Programme is an initiative of the Clore Duffield Foundation.

We’re very sorry to bring the sad news that John McGuirk has passed away.  John was one of our very first participants and a vocal supporter of Collective Encounters.   He’s pictured here receiving an Open College Network certification for participation in our first project Living Place, from Artistic Director Sarah Thornton.  John saw Collective Encounters’ first professional performance and was so pleased that we were tackling the issue of regeneration in north Liverpool and looking at the ways in which it was negatively impacting on many people, that he decided to join us.  He was very proud to act in a forum theatre piece that discussed how older people were at the time being ‘regenerated out’ of the city.  He came to see many subsequent performances and joined in when ever his busy schedule allowed him.  One of the real highlights was his guest spot playing spoons in our 2008 cabaret Smoke and Mirrors, where he amazed and delighted audiences with his skill.  He later told us he’d played spoons on the stage of the Liverpool Philharmonic!   Here you can see John play in a North West Tonight trail feature on Smoke and Mirrors.

We’re very sad to lose him, and our thoughts are with his family.

Alistair was a core member of the Kabin Krew a small company of actors with experience of homelessness.  He helped to devise and performed in three productions which all sought to communicate the experience of homelessness to a wider public audience, and explored dreams and aspirations for the future.

Alistair worked alongside a team of professional artists as they developed our opera Songs for Silenced Voices and performed in its companion piece, Moving On which he took with the company to London, performing at Crisis Skylight for members of Streetwise Opera, and also at the National Theatre’s John Lyon’s studio.

He performed to over 100 people at Liverpool City Council’s Homelessness Stakeholders group, sharing his experiences with service providers and helping to facilitate service users to give their ideas and opinions about how services could be improved.

Alistair overcame his literacy difficulties to achieve a nationally recognised qualification: an Open College Network accreditation in Facilitation Skills.

Drama facilitator Abi Horsefield, who worked with Alistair for 3 years said “Alistair was an amazing character, he was always up for a laugh and a challenge. He was brave enough to share his story with a public audience. I loved working with him. He will be sadly missed by me and the group.”

Alistair with co-members Bernadette (left) and Emma (right).

Artistic Director Sarah Thornton shares a memory

Alistair was central to one my most treasured memories of the past few years when he participated in a sharing of work in 2009.  The very first public airing of our then 10 minute opera, Songs for Silenced Voices, was to members of the Kabin Krew.  It was a nerve wracking experience – how would people with direct experience of homelessness respond to an opera which sought to tell their stories in such a heightened and lyrical style?  We were all very nervous waiting for the group to come and anxious as to how they’d respond.  Suddenly an opera seemed like a big risk.  Fortunately the piece was very well received – members of the group felt it communicated the ideas effectively and truthfully and Alistair was visibly moved by the piece.  But the most powerful experience was the subsequent performance by the Kabin Krew of their stories, told as monologues supported by music, to the professional team.  As each actor performed their own story we were absoloutely gripped and reminded both why we were making the opera, why it was so important to tell the stories we were telling, and also just how close we all come to the possibility of homelessness.  It was powerful theatre and an incredibly powerful creative process.  Alistair was very happy to have been part of the process and talked to me about how he felt valued and respected, and how important it was to him to have been given a platform alongside professional actors.  He later came down to the empty shop where we’d be performing the opera and was very proud to be part of a photo shoot on set.  He was a charming, open, emotional man and I’m very sorry about his sad, untimely death.

Alistair with Denise Kennedy (left) and Abi Horsfield (right)

If you’d like to share your memories of Alistair we’d love to hear them

We’re going to use this blog to keep you posted about how the project is developing, and we very much hope to have some conversations here about the work.

Simon James (composer), Phil Burghes (our Creative Producer) and myself (Sarah Thornton, Artistic Director) will be leading the development of the project, but each song will be created in a different way. Our youth theatre will work with a team of artists to create one song, our third age theatre will create another and our participants who have experience of homelessness will create a third.  Each of these will explore a particular aspect of contemporary poverty.  The team will work on a further two songs which will explore the national/international picture and bigger, overriding concerns and ideas.  We’re very much hoping that input from artists and others who are interested internationally will inform our thinking and provide content and ideas that will feed the whole thing.

The original inspiration for the project came from the Charles Parker Radio Ballads [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/radioballads/original/orig_history.shtml] but it echoes all the work of artists throughout the centuries who’ve used their work to highlight social injustice.  A particular resonance now is the Occupy movement which is all about saying enough is enough – it doesn’t have to be like this – the way things are is just wrong and can be changed.  That’s a very exciting place to be.  We hope that In Our Times will contribute in some small way to this – will show, in a heightened, creative way, just how unjust, how unequal, how wrong things are and will incite audiences to challenge the status quo and begin to seek alternatives.

We’d love to hear your thoughts.  How do you think art can best speak to people?  How can it best incite action?

The Fazakerley Cottage Homes Community Play Project aims to record living memories, unearth hidden stories, celebrate heritage and look to the future. It will bring professional artists and the local community together to animate this remarkable space with music, light, film and performances.

They are looking to recruit a Creative Researcher to help  capture stories, read through those already gathered and make sense of them in order to build a picture and timeline of the Cottage Homes Site over the last 100 years. Ideally the Creative Researcher will have a background and an interest in the field of Community Arts. Specific duties include

• meeting the team of volunteers already involved on the project to understand and share the work that has already been carried out
• preparing a timeline of stories gathered
• attending and documenting activities at community consultation days and workshops alongside volunteers and local researchers
• looking at the stories in the context of key national events and significant changes in health and social care and child welfare policy and attitudes to disability
• storing stories in a structured way to allow it to be understood by third parties
• contributing and sharing ideas and experiences

The Creative Research will work directly with Eamonn Leavy who is heading up the project and they will be reimbursed for expenses as appropriate. Starting asap. To register your interest or to find out more contact – Anne or Eamonn on 521 7569 0r fsnp89@hotmail.com

All this has got me even more excited about In Our Times which we’re in development for at the moment, and how the ideas might start to be applied practically – it’s our new scratch piece and will start life as a 5-part animated song-cycle exploring poverty and inequality and looking at the impact of the cuts on us locally, nationally and internationally.  We’re working with our participant groups and a team of professional artists as well as (for the first time) putting a call out for people to get involved internationally – you can find out more here.  So the research and the practice are starting to come together.

If you’ve thoughts about political theatre past or present I’d love to hear them.  If you’ve thoughts about how we can be using theatre now to tackle the problems of our time, I’d love to hear…