We are announcing the participatory arts projects that we will be supporting to full production during the next phase of our Sharing the Stage initiative 2016 – 2017. The ambition behind this work is to explore the potential of participatory performing arts in creating transformational experiences for the most vulnerable people in society. We hope that each production will be excellent in its own right: each project is distinctive, working with different groups and in different ways. Each production will contribute valuable insights for practitioners and organisations to support the sector in understanding what works and taking socially-engaged participatory performing arts practice forward.

Background to the Sharing the Stage initiative

In 2015 the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation supported fourteen projects with a fund of £280,000 to research and develop innovative approaches to participatory performing arts by collaborating with partners across the spectrum of arts and social care. A learning community was established to support the cohort of projects and to co-design an evaluation framework that would formalise emerging trends into models that could be scaled and replicated. In 2016 ten of these projects will receive further support from a fund of £487,000, along with an additional contribution of £150,000 from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

The projects we are supporting

1. Artsadmin
Partners: Nic Green, GalGael Trust, Sunny Govan Radio, and Archibald Young Foundry

Location: Scotland

Giving a platform for the voices that are seldom heard, this project explores the changing fortunes of a post-industrial city and empowers local people to reimagine a future for the Clyde estuary region. Radio Shadowlands includes a year-long digital community radio project culminating in an operatic river pageant, with broadcasts over one lunar month at low tide from a derelict shipyard site.

2. Contact Theatre
Partners: Ockham’s Razor, Imitating the Dog, and The Factory Youth Zone

Location: Manchester

Focusing on widening young people’s aspirations through participation in the arts, this project brings together 40 young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) from North Manchester. The consortium will develop a spectacular large-scale site-specific production combining digital arts and aerial performance, for touring in 2017.

3. Geese Theatre Company
Partners: Birmingham Rep, Reel Access, Changes UK and Crisis UK

Location: Birmingham

Rising to the challenge of demonstrating the impact of arts engagement in improving recovery rates, this project will create an ensemble of adults recovering from substance misuse, through collaboration with two recovery agencies. The project will establish the ensemble as an independent entity who will continue to create and perform.

4. Geraldine Pilgrim
Partners: Novak, Katherine Low Settlement, and West Yorkshire Playhouse

Location: Leeds, London and Edinburgh

Challenging the perceptions of older people in society and in the arts, this project focuses on transforming older people’s memories into an ambitious new work. The cast includes older people and actors performing together, which will tour to both mainstream theatre venues and care home settings.

5. Graeae Theatre Company
Partners: Gravity and Levity, and Airhez

Location: London

Exploring the issues of physical fitness on rehabilitation, this project highlights the often forgotten casualties of war. Deaf and disabled ex-veterans will be trained in theatre and aerial performance to develop a powerful commemoration for the soldiers who were disabled during the World Wars and later lost their lives.

6. National Theatre of Scotland
Partners: Art Link, Plan B, Fullbright, Manifesto JA and Yuva Ekta Foundation

Location: Australia, Brazil, India, Jamaica, UK and USA

Revealing social inequality and the complexities of a place called ‘home’, this ambitious multi-art form project will highlight a diverse range of international perspectives. Project participants include Gaels across Scotland, Glaswegian Bangladeshis, shanty town residents in Kingston, Favela residents in Rio de Janeiro and street children in New Delhi (to name just a few). Creative outcomes of these collaborations will be showcased at a festival marking the 10^th anniversary of National Theatre Scotland.

7. Sage Gateshead
Partners: Newcastle United Football Club and Newcastle United Football Foundation

Location: Newcastle

Exploring the power of activism through music, sport and ‘place’, this project aims to bring together the under-represented communities of West Newcastle. Drawing on models of Assembly performance the project will create a large-scale festival production including an orchestral piece to be performed at Premiere League matches.

8. Synergy Theatre Company

Partners: HMP Brixton and Young Vic Theatre

Location: London

Focusing on the transition between life in and outside of prison, this immersive promenade performance will be created and performed by both current and ex-prisoners. The work will also explore the significance of ‘place’ in the first performance, which will transport audiences from a mainstream venue, Young Vic Theatre, with the site-specific location of HMP Brixton.

9. Royal Court Theatre
Partners: Bryony Kimmings, West Yorkshire Playhouse, ACE, VICE, and Roundhouse

Location: UK-wide

Empowering marginalised young men through creativity and activism, this ground-breaking multi-art form project focuses on creating agents for positive change in society. We will be supporting the ‘Boot Camp’ phase where participants will be trained to explore the social, political and media dimensions of our lives to inspire a movement.

10. Walled City Music

Partners: University of Ulster, Drake Music and St Magnus Festival

Location: Ulster

Driven by the need to create inclusive participation and performance opportunities for disabled musicians, this project enables a range of people with physical and learning disabilities to collaborate, create and perform. Digital tools to support ongoing music making and a touring programme will be lasting legacies.