Leverhulme Funding for Applied Theatre student projects

Central is delighted to announce its latest awards for undergraduate and postgraduate Applied Theatre projects for summer 2017, funded by The Leverhulme Trust.

The Leverhulme Arts Scholarships awards, funded by the Leverhulme Trust since 2007, enable students on the BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre and Education (BA DATE) and the MA Applied Theatre courses to participate in a unique range of outreach opportunities, undertaking national and international placement project opportunities that are vital elements of their course curricula.

Awards made to undergraduate DATE students this summer are for groups of 4-6 students for each project, and these include: Week-long artist residencies in schools in Cornwall; working with children in care and recent care leavers conducting film, digital, writing and drama workshops in Manchester; working with young LGBT youth around Manchester to develop material for a cabaret show and local festival performance; delivering writing workshops with primary and secondary schools in Manchester and Leicester, and training school teachers in creative pedagogy devising and delivering workshops to offer drama based activities in Mumbai, India.

A large number of awards were also made to postgraduate Applied Theatre students for projects this summer, including (a full list is available below): a theatre collaboration with the Wallis Youth Theatre Company and Director/Facilitator: Madeleine Dahm in Los Angeles, US; working with a non-profit organisation offering performing arts opportunities for young adults with Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities, Chicago, US; daily delivery of multiple drama workshops to groups of 6 to 18 years old girls residing in a care home in Delhi, India; running a drama based workshop that focuses on developing emotional literacy and exploring the sense of cultural identity, Goa, India; working with Action on Addictionfacilitating participatory applied theatre sessions with adults in recovery, Liverpool; and a project for empowering Chinese trans community people to make mini films, photography, art pieces and writings culminated in exhibition, Beijing, China.

Professor of Applied Theatre and Principal Investigator for The Leverhulme Trust Award, Sally Mackey, commented on the awards, “I’m delighted that we can award money for these excellent projects and, once again, thank the Leverhulme Trust for their grant to us.”

Full list of Leverhulme Arts Scholarship awarded projects, summer 2017

Undergraduate BA (Hons) Drama, Applied Theatre & Education student projects:

Awarded to groups of 4-6 students for each project

• Week-long artist residencies at St Levan Primary School, and SEN school Nancealverne, Cornwall
• Young People in Care/Care leavers: working with children in care and recent care leavers conducting film, digital, writing and drama workshops to two groups to generate material for a celebratory sharing in early June, Manchester
• LGBT/Outbox: working with young LGBT youth recruiting young people from youth groups around Manchester. Running workshops to develop material for a cabaret show and local festival performance in the People’s museum celebrating 50 years of LGBT protests.
• Writers: delivering writing workshops with primary and secondary schools, where participants will write a script for a national playwriting competition, and review and short list plays for rehearsed readings to be performed locally, Manchester and Leicester.
• Creative Pedagogy: training school teachers in creative pedagogy devising and delivering workshops to offer drama based activities, and working with school children, Mumbai, India.

Postgraduate MA Applied Theatre student projects:

• Wallis Youth Theatre Company: a theatre collaboration with the Wallis Youth Theatre Company and Director/Facilitator: Madeleine Dahm examining, deconstructing, re-imagining and devising an adaptation of the play Thebes by Gareth Jandrell, Los Angeles, US
• A.B.L.E (Artists Breaking Limits & Expectation): working with a non-profit organisation offering performing arts opportunities for young adults with Down syndrome and other developmental disabilities, Chicago, US
• Concrete Utopias: daily delivery of multiple drama workshops to groups of 6 to 18 years old girls residing in a care home, with an emphasis on safe relationships and body image through the drama workshops, Delhi, India
• Fundação Oriente India: The Adventures of a Brave Navigator in the Unknown Seas, a drama based workshop that focuses on developing emotional literacy and exploring the sense of cultural identity, Goa, India
• Recoverist Theatre Project: working with Action on Addiction and based at the Brink Café, the project involves facilitating participatory applied theatre sessions with adults in recovery, Liverpool, UK
• Trans-X: a project for empowering Chinese trans community people to make mini films, photography, art pieces and writings culminated in exhibition, Beijing, China
• Arts and Healthcare: creating and performing participatory performances using multi-sensory tools to children in medical environments; performing in private hospitals, public hospitals, cancer wards and mental health wards, Johannesburg, South Africa
• Udayan Care: providing residential support for young women aged between 8 and 21; using Applied Theatre to build confidence and creative expression in these young women, Delhi, India
• Crossing Bridges Project, Covenant House: the project enables the Covenant House participants to find positive methods of self-expression and aims to nurture a sense of self-value and worth, New York, US
• Camp Friendship: a residential summer camp for individuals with disabilities of all ages; involving creating and delivering a drama programme that focuses on inclusivity and offers therapeutic sensory sessions, alongside drama and storytelling workshops, Minnesota, US
• Military Drama and Media Project: a youth drama and media project delivered across multiple military bases, working with young people age 8-13, to create augmented reality performance tours, reflecting their lived experience of the bases, Norfolk/ Suffolk, UK
• Concrete Utopias: the project provides an opportunity for participants to explore and express their relationship with their community and environment; reaching out to marginalized youth and engage them with the arts by using what can be found in the surroundings, Mumbai, India
• The Crown troupe of Africa: a comparative study of domestic violence experienced by Yoruba women in Nigeria and its Brazilian Diasporic heritage, Lagos, Nigeria
• Dialogue: facilitating a collaborative documentation process that captures the work of several creative facilitators. Reporting on the “World Congress and International Theatre Festival for Children and Young People”, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Cape Town, South Africa
• Ashtar Theatre Company: using theatre to create a platform for discussions of gender inequality within Palestinian communities, particularly with youth, Israel and The Palestinian Territories
• Dialogue: working alongside Dialogue and their partners in South Africa to facilitate a creative collaborative documentation process with the intention of publishing the variety of practices and projects online, to achieve an international network of community performance, Capetown, South Africa
• Act Up!: working with two learning disabled actors to provide workshop leader training, using Signalong in drama, Rome, Italy
• Graded/St Paul’s School, BRAC: aims for children of different social classes to come together and devise a piece of theatre about their lives, their interactions and their perceptions of each other, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Educaswitch: designing and delivering anti-bullying workshops in schools through applied theatre methods. Producing and delivering a series of workshops in Schools, Chile
• Story Catchers Theatre: developing the creative abilities of young women and men currently incarcerated, helping them to understand their own stories and how they can make changes in their life which will lead them away from the criminal justice system, Chicago, US.

About Central’s Applied Theatre courses

Central’s Applied Theatre courses are some of its most prized and attract large numbers of prospective students. Through the generous, ongoing support of the Leverhulme Trust, students are supported as they undertake key elements of their training beyond the confines of the School. These placements enable students to develop their learning in a variety of social and community contexts, developing the necessary experience and skills to secure professional work upon graduation – thus providing them with the very best possibility for employment. In continuing to enable their participation in these excellent and innovative projects, support from the Leverhulme Trust helps Central graduates to stand out.

Since 2007, the Leverhulme Trust has provided life-changing opportunities for hundreds of students at Central and for countless more groups with whom they have worked across the globe including the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, South African townships and in prisons in the United Kingdom and abroad. Through the Leverhulme Trust’s continued support, travel, accommodation and other expenses for the students’ placements are funded, enabling them to learn the skills of performance-making in the broadest range of non-traditional places.

About The Leverhulme Trust

The Leverhulme Trust was established by the Will of William Hesketh Lever, the founder of Lever Brothers. Since 1925 they have provided grants and scholarships for research and education and stand today as one of the largest all-subject providers of research funding in the UK, distributing approximately £80m a year.

The Trust awards funding across academic disciplines, supporting talented individuals in the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences to realise their personal vision in research and professional training. As well as substantial grants for research, they offer fellowships for researchers at every stage of their career, grants for international collaboration and travel, and support for the fine and performing arts.

Pictured, above: BA DATE 2nd year students in 2016, working with the Proud Trust to deliver 2 weeks of workshops for a group of LGBT identified young people