Project information
Prof David Harradine’s practice research is conducted through the cross-disciplinary arts company Fevered Sleep, of which he is co-artistic director, and integrates creative practices, participation, and innovative approaches to partnerships, public engagement, and touring in order to bring about social change. Focusing on ‘difficult’ issues through sustained collaboration with cultural organisations, local authorities, communities, and individuals, Harradine’s research has generated the following impacts.
Engaging diverse and marginalised audiences
Fevered Sleep’s practice in relation to diversity is recognised as ‘strong’ by Arts Council England, who note that it ‘understands and is responsive to challenges and barriers facing members of the protected characteristic groups in engaging in the sector’. Harradine’s practice research in Men & Girls Dance and This Grief Thing has generated forms of artistic expression with multiple, interconnected mechanisms for engagement and participation. They have developed ‘contextual materials’ to wrap around performances at each venue and created innovative forms of public engagement. As a result, Harradine and Fevered Sleep have successfully engaged diverse and marginalised audiences across the UK and in Europe.
By August 2019, the 10 versions of Men & Girls Dance had generated 81 performances, engaging 11,600 people as participants and audiences, including a residency at Skånes Dansteater in Malmö, Sweden. To date, This Grief Thing has completed 5 residencies (2018–2019), with 3,440 people visiting and 341 people participating in ‘Grief Gatherings’, including a programme of online gatherings in 2020. Project evaluations show that Men & Girls Dance’s 2016 tour played to 89% of its full audience capacity, of which ‘an impressive 14% were brand new to contemporary dance’, ‘over a third (37%) of those surveyed had never been to the respective venue before’, and ‘10% of audience [were] from areas of low engagement’ with the arts. This engagement with diverse and marginalised audiences was delivered through collaborative, local engagements, linking the project into existing networks to promote interest and engagement.
This Grief Thing focused specifically on places in the top 100 locations on the Index of Multiple Deprivation. Participants came from 38 different Local Authorities, with almost 50% of visitors coming from those ranking in the top 20% of most deprived areas in the country. In all, 13% of respondents giving feedback identified as racially minoritized (in line with the data for areas visited), and 22% identified as LGBTQIA+, substantially higher than the national average.
Enhancing cultural understanding through the exploration of difficult subjects in social contexts that facilitate conversation and exchange
Through forms as varied as dance, clothing, printed materials, and conversation, these projects enhanced cultural understanding of difficult social issues. In M&GD, a newspaper was published about the project and its context at each venue, with contributions sourced locally, described by one partner as ‘an excellent mechanism for starting a conversation on the theme and a brilliant resource that is very useful for teachers/safeguarding officers […] dance practitioners working with young people’. Community members were also engaged via ‘The Talking Place’, a series of drop-in safe spaces ‘for the public to discuss the project’s themes’ through facilitated conversations. Evidencing the capacity of the performance and its contextual materials to enhance understanding of the project’s difficult subject, a local councillor stated that ‘The way the piece gradually dispelled any misgivings about men dancing with young girls was phenomenal. I was totally drawn in and at the end completely related to all on stage’. Likewise, theatre critic Lyn Gardner wrote: ‘At the end, children and adults stand side by side at the front of the stage and look out at us with a steady gaze. They have banished the monsters and made us see something different: the joy. It’s touching, in every way’.
The shop installations for TGT were also developed to generate opportunities for participation and conversation, engaging people with the difficult subject of grief in a setting that is ordinary, unthreatening, and familiar. Members of the public were also invited to join ‘Grief Gatherings’ in the shop after closing time, described by one partner as ‘very much needed. People don’t have a public space where they can talk about grief and death’, and by another as ‘a beautiful space for sharing hard experiences with one another’. Participants attested to their own enhanced understanding of grief: ‘I found it a really positive experience where everyone got to contribute and many insights were provided […] it made me feel that grieving is allowed and normal!’, ‘Breaking the taboo is really helpful — made me feel comforted’; ‘it helped to unlock something that I didn’t even realise was trapped inside of me’, ‘it’s very rare indeed for me to find an opportunity just to have someone hear me’, ‘This Grief Thing has changed my life because it’s changed me’. The project also widened its impact on cultural understandings of grief and grieving through extensive press engagement at national, regional, and local levels, including features on BBC Radio 5 Live and the i newspaper, as well as local television and press.
Changing practices and policies within partner organisations
Partner organisations report that their practices have changed as a result of collaborating with Harradine and Fevered Sleep. Louisa Davies, an independent producer formerly of the Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), acknowledges that
We changed our approach to tour bookings from one-off performances to longer residencies; integrated creative activities at MAC (such as workshops) with strategic audience development initiatives; and developed new ways to work in partnership with primary schools.
Partners also confirmed more indirect influences on their organisational practice. One host organisation remarked that ‘our space is now being used in a different way — we have pop ups happening in it all the time — the project sparked a different way for us to use the space, and Middlesbrough Town Council’s Arts Development Officer testifies to ‘a whole new approach to the use of retail spaces in the town (which has also enabled the development of new ways of working in partnership with one of the town shopping centres), and the reimagining of retail spaces as civic spaces’.
Further new partnerships have been generated as a result of This Grief Thing, including artists supporting the delivery of ‘social and palliative care’, and collaborations between local authority Culture and Arts, and Health teams:
Working with Fevered Sleep provided a context that facilitated partnership building in the town. This process led directly to a new way of thinking about partnership working, and the necessity to create ties with other, specialist organisations when working in community settings. This process, modelled by Fevered Sleep’s approach to touring and presenting This Grief Thing, relies on collaborating organisations mutually embedding their work, strategy and practice, an approach we continue to pursue.
Harradine’s influence on the practices and policies of the wider arts sector is evidenced by Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive of Paul Hamlyn Foundation, who testifies that Harradine’s practice research ‘has undoubtedly had an impact on the sector, leading to change in practices of both touring companies and receiving venues’ who have been enabled to take more risks in programming and make bolder programming choices.
Contributing to the shaping of policy debates
Harradine’s practice research in This Grief Thing has led to his contribution to policy debates on grief and bereavement. In recognition of his research and impact, he was invited to join the All-Party Parliamentary Group on bereavement support. The group’s secretariat, The Good Grief Trust (the UK’s umbrella organisation for bereavement charities and related organisations), contributes to government policy on bereavement and developed National Grief Awareness Week 2020. The Trust has testified to Harradine’s impact on policy debate: ‘Fevered Sleep was the key arts partner for this project, galvanising major cultural institutions across the UK (including the National Theatre and Imperial War Museums) to engage in awareness-raising activities to highlight the need for high level government action on bereavement support’.