In the summer of 1999, SAMPAD (South Asian Arts) began planning a project to work with socially excluded children from a variety of backgrounds in the city of Birmingham. The children included a large number, who were at the time, or had been, in care or excluded from school.
The project used South Asian, African and Caribbean dance and music as a focus and worked with children from four schools both in and out of school curriculum time.
- Frankley Community High School
- Golden Hillock Community School
- Lindsworth School (part of the educational village)
- St. Paul's Community School
Artist/lecturer Pat Dixon - who worked on the design aspect of putting on a performance. This picture shows her and a student making a design for a T-shirt to be used in the performance.
one of the artists - Robert Iffel -better known as Goggi-, dancing with 2 participants
artists Geetha Sridhar and Helen MacDonald working with
Golden Hillock School participants
All the artists working together with pupils from Frankley
School.
Musician Mohinder Singh, dance artist Geetha Sridhar and a
pupil from Frankley during the actual performance of Moving on
Scene from the performance of Moving on
Scene from the performance of Moving on
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The photographers of all the photos are students from Lindsworth Centre and
Frankley School. They were all taken during the project and these students
were under the supervision of Patricia Crummay (photographer).
The project aimed to:
- Target disaffected young people in Birmingham to provide an opportunity for arts activity alongside local schools
- Provide work of high quality and status that involved pupils in inspirational work
- Provide work, in specific traditions, that built pupils' self esteem
- Engage pupils in work with an art form and other pupils that built cultural (specifically racial) awareness and understanding and broadened and deepened schools' arts work in South Asian, African and Caribbean traditions
- Support partnerships between mainstream and special education and encourage pupils to integrate across school, year, gender and ethnic groups
- To extend SAMPAD's cross-cultural agenda into its work with young people in a variety of school based activity and to develop the relationships established by the Year of Arts project
Pupils were involved with professional dancers and musicians alongside a designer and photographer in a three-stage project. The young people involved (aged 12 - 17) opted to participate in each stage of the project:
taster sessions; regular workshops; intensive week leading to a performance.
The final performance was held on 22 April 2000 with 18 young people performing, and was accompanied by an exhibition documenting the project in still and digital photographs, taken by 4 young women from the schools.
Artists Geetha Sridhar, Robert Ifill, Helen MacDonald and Mohinder Singh began working on this project in January 2000 with a series of development days. These included a workshop on difficult behaviours with Geese Theatre (who work with young people and adults in the prison and probation system), as well as practice based planning sessions.
The young people who participated in the project and the artists and technician who worked with them were culturally mixed including western and eastern European, African, Caribbean and South Asian backgrounds.
The young people gained hugely in confidence; students who were not good school attenders came to sessions both in and out of school time (including a whole week in their Easter holiday), they worked hard and understood and accepted the need to be led and organised even when this meant conceding to the authority of members of the artist or theatre team.
Despite the huge racial and cultural mix their were no conflicts beyond those to be expected when a group of competitive teenagers meet each other. In fact firm friendships were made and the project ended with much hugging and a few tears.
Feedback from the participants confirmed that the young people involved, many of whom had never danced before (including some in informal settings) wanted more dance and music, they suggested that South Asian, African and Caribbean dance be included in PE lessons or that after school arts clubs be set up.
So why did the project work?
Analysis points of course to many factors, the project had been a huge collaborative effort, drawing on the skills and experiences of a large number of people.
Key contributors though can be cited as:
- The fact that the young people involved, even within school time, chose to take part in the project. Of course this also led to some problems since some of the students who wished to take part were either not granted parental permission or because of often complex family arrangements found clashes between home commitments/opportunities and project sessions.
- The commitment of the adults and the high expectations by them of the young people.
- The status and level of input provided by and for the young people; six artists were involved and a professional venue and technician, as well as the level of preliminary work done to ensure the integration of the team.
- The uniqueness of the project. The young people were interested in something different, something that they had never done before.
- The choice of participant artists and schools, which brought together a strong and complimentary team to drive and shape the project.
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