July 2021, UK’s leading outdoor arts companies Walk the Plank and Coventry UK City of Culture 2021 hosted Creative Europe: Celebration, an event that gave insight to the creativity of international artists and local families. The event encouraged visitors to explore nature through outdoor performances, storytelling and music.
Led by one of the Walk the Plank, we are offering the opportunity to artists and community leaders to join the Coventry Creative Europe School of Participation this summer 2021.
About the Programme/Project
Each of the five Creative Europe Schools of Participation see up to 30 practitioners from across Europe coming together for a week to learn and share skills in the practice of creating outdoor celebrations with local communities. The Coventry School will be the third in a series of five:
• Plovdiv (Bulgaria) – 2019
• Kaunas (Lithuania) – 2020
• Novi Sad (Serbia) – April 2021
• Coventry (UK) – July 2021
• Graz (Austria) – August 2021
Together with contributions from four associate partners from Limerick (Ireland), Yerevan (Armenia), Tartu (Estonia) and Veszprem (Hungary), the aim of the 3-year project is to grow a culture of sustainable outdoor arts activity cities across Europe, in turn building career opportunities and networking for creative talent and developing new audiences for the arts in the communities where the schools take place. Coventry UK City of Culture, 15th May 2021 – 1 st May 2022 is proud to present a cultural programme that reflects Coventry, its people and its ambitions for the future. We are a diverse, modern city which is re-imagining the role culture can play in bringing people together. Coventry is a city of welcome, a city of activists and pioneers, a city of peace and reconciliation, a city of innovation and invention, a City of Culture.
The Coventry School in the UK (18th – 25th July 2021)
The Coventry School of Participation will focus on making, music, storytelling and movement, on land and on water, co-creating a processional performance, culminating in a canal side celebration on July 24 in Coventry’s canal basin.
It is designed to build the capacity of creative practitioners interested in working with artists and communities in public space to make site-responsive celebrations to mark locations and occasions.
Based in Imagineer’s Daimler Powerhouse building, the training programme of inspiration and ‘learning by doing’, with artists from across Europe will involve:
• Hands-on making, movement and skills workshops facilitated by Walk the Plank and local arts experts
• Classroom learning, practical inspiration, guest speakers
• A session on the Small Bells Ring boat with Heather Morison (Morison Studio) https://coventry2021.co.uk/coming-soon/small-bells-ring
• and a chance to put ideas and techniques into practice with a scratch processional performance, made in 3 days.
The School involves an intensive week of working - daytime and night-time culminating in a final celebration on and around Coventry’s canal basin on the afternoon of 24th July.
Practitioners will also interact with community groups at moments during the week and these groups will join the practitioners in the afternoon family celebration at the Canal Basin on 24th July.
Trainers will include artists/designers/makers, and a choreographer/movement specialist, and participants will be a mix of professional and non-professional creative practitioners, drawn from Coventry and the EU School of Participation partner cities.
The Venue
The school of participation will take place at the fabulous newly refurbished Daimler Powerhouse building. After a year- long programme of capital re-development, Imagineer Productions received the keys to this beautiful new building on the 14th April 2021: https://www.facebook.com/MidlandsBBC/videos/856602808254785.
All the resident companies: Imagineer, Highly Sprung Performance Company, Talking Birds, Media Mania and Open Theatre Company are delighted and excited to be opening this major new cultural resource and welcoming the Creative Europe outdoor arts school in July.
The Brief
We are seeking 2 professional or non-professional creative practitioners, especially those with an interest in outdoor arts and those with a passion for co-creating with communities.
You may be:
• trained in creative arts and continued it as a hobby
• a local leader with a community group
• a professional creative producer, practitioner or facilitator
• an artist/maker, dancer/choreographer, actor/director, writer/storyteller, singer/musician,
• involved in organising processions, carnivals or outdoor performances. Covid-allowing, professional and non-professional practitioners will travel to the UK from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Serbia, Austria, Ireland, Armenia and Hungary to join UK practitioners making a total of approximately 30 in the school.
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