Central and Partners Run Summer Schools for Young People
Throughout the Summer, Central has been working alongside a number of partner organisations as well as schools, colleges and universities across London to make two unique, remote summer school opportunities – Get Creative at Home and Get Scene at Home – available to young people who have been stuck at home due to COVID-19.
Get Creative at Home is a collaborative project set up by Central, Goldsmiths University and Ravensbourne University. For the past two years, this group of Universities have together run a collaborative summer school for young people from London who are interested in the Creative Arts. Due to the situation with COVID-19 in the UK, the summer school was not able to go ahead this year as it had in previous years, and as had been originally planned.
Instead, the team worked to supply 50 young people from across London with boxes of art supplies to help them Get Creative at Home. The boxes contained paints, brushes, charcoal, clay, a sketch pad, pastels and a disposable camera.
Running for 3 weeks in July, weekly task-based videos were created with professional artists who suggested themes for the participants to consider when creating their own works of art. These videos were then sent to the young people at the start of each week and, alongside a series of zoom workshops and weekly support sessions with artists to help them develop technique and skill, they were encouraged to create their own pieces for display in a digital gallery. All of this work can be viewed by visiting the Get Creative at Home website.
Through September, Central has also partnered with Generation Arts for their Get Scene at Home summer school programme.
Generation Arts delivers high quality, free acting and theatre-making training projects for young people in the margins in London. They specialise in working with under-represented aspiring actors, young people NEET (not in education, employment or training) and young people who may be at risk or have experienced a range of social exclusion factors including long-term unemployment, leaving care, offending, gang-affiliation and homelessness.
Central has previously hosted Generation Arts on its Swiss Cottage campus for the annual Generation Arts summer school, most recently welcoming participants for Get Scene 2019. However, restrictions on in-person and on-site gatherings due to COVID-19 meant that this year’s summer school has taken a different delivery approach.
For Get Scene 2020, summer school activities were delivered to participants remotely, allowing them to participate during lockdown and continue honing their acting skills from home. In order to ensure access to the programme, Central provided funding for participants to purchase tablets so that they could take part remotely.
A series of free online masterclasses are being delivered live online or later via the Get Scene 2020 online portal. Working in collaboration, these masterclasses are being offered by expert artist practitioners from both Central and Generation Arts. Sessions include Acting Shakespeare, Preparing a Monologue, Drama School Self Tape Auditions for COVID-19, Creating a Character, Audition Techniques and many more. They have been designed to support young, aspiring actors to develop their craft whilst working alongside a lead artist and other aspiring actors, and to provide tips for continuing this work on their own at home. Sessions focus on demystifying professional auditions, professional ways of working and drama school training.
Alongside training, participants receive online next step, career and pastoral support from qualified staff through 1-1’s and mentoring. Participants also gain access to an extensive online portal containing free resources to support them as they develop their careers in the creative industries. Resources include a bank of monologues to use, audition and CV guidance, masterclass videos, tips and advice from industry professionals and Q&As with past participants who have successfully graduated from drama school.
For more information on Central’s Outreach work including summer schools, please visit the Outreach section of our website.
