Central Outreach in Lockdown
Throughout Spring term the student, staff and alumni teams that collaborate to deliver Central’s Outreach programme to young people across the country have continued their work digitally, despite the national lockdown.
A number of programmes and activities have been adapted to reach young people in their homes to raise aspiration and attainment and to encourage progression to higher education, particularly for those learners who are currently under-represented.
This has included:
Discover Backstage - through the Brightside Trust, Central’s Theatre Practice Student Ambassadors are providing online mentoring for 20 young people so that they can find out more about backstage courses and careers.
Live Workshops – as a part of the UniConnect programme, Central has been running a series of online masterclasses and workshops for students at London South East Colleges (LSEC)
Teacher Training Workshops - To support teachers with their online delivery in schools and colleges, Central has held a series of workshops including Top tips for teaching Shakespeare online, Creating immersive and one-on-one performance and New Writing. Over 300 teachers from across the UK have engaged with these sessions, gaining valuable support in shifting the teaching for their online performing arts courses online.
During half term, Central was also excited to offer for the first time its Small Axe, Big Talks project. Small Axe, Big Talks was a free opportunity for 25 young theatre makers aged between 16 –18 to have an introduction to Central’s Contemporary Performance Practice courses. Participants critically explored themes from Steve McQueen’s Small Axe films ‘Lovers Rock’ and ‘Education’ through their participation in movement, creative writing and devising workshops. Participants used the body to make live performance and investigated how theatre can build community, turning the political into performance. Workshops included:
Protest as Performance
Devising with Kindness
Writing for Communities
Dramaturgy
Performance Art Journey
Creating Community through Dance
Central’s 2021 outreach provision follows on from the numerous workshops, mentoring opportunities and bespoke projects which were delivered remotely in 2020 as a result of the global pandemic. This work was shifted online quickly in response to need, and culminated in two bespoke summer school workshops: Get Scene at Home, a partnership between Central and Generation Arts, and Get Creative at Home, which was run as a collaborative project with Goldsmiths University and Ravensbourne University. For the latter Central, Goldsmith and Ravensbourne were shortlisted for a Best Practice Collaboration Award at the 2020 HELOA Awards, which celebrate best practice across the sector.
For more information and to learn more about our work with young people, visit our Outreach pages.
