London 2012 presentation on SAILING TO BRITAIN

Notes from Helen Renwick (Arts Manager) Wandsworth Borough Council and Jonathan Kennedy (Executive Director) TARA Arts presentation for the London Culture 2012 conference, 8th December 2010, at the Lost Theatre.

Wandsworth Borough Council & TARA ARTS working toward London 2012.

Wandsworth: Our Planning

GLOBAL Opening Ceremony & Games
NATIONAL Torch Relay
REGIONAL Cultural Festival

LOCAL Cultural Celebrations

Identify relevant opportunities to present work

Maximise existing events: eg WANDSWORTH ARTS FESTIVAL and TARA ARTS' SAILING TO BRITAIN.

TARA ARTS - SAILING TO BRITAIN

The project, from inception through to outputs

THE IDEA:

Lascars = sailors from Asia and Africa used extensively on British ships. Many eventually settled in London. A fabulous metaphor for creating a new society and nations converging in London, Olympics theme.

THE PAST 18 MONTHS:

Secured partners – National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Theatre, Croydon Clocktower & Wandsworth Arts and Education services.

Secured funding – London Councils, HLF and Wandsworth

Recruited the project team and participants.

Researched stories and developed the performance methodology – including oral history interviews, archive visits inc Old Bailey & maritime object handling sessions.

Presented performances – Greenwich, Croydon & Wandsworth

Marketing strategies that worked for the project

RECRUITMENT

Key role Participation Officer

Direct contact – individuals, community orgs, schools across London and through partners networks.

Focus on summer workshops programme

INSPIRE mark and associated kudos helped leverage HLF funding.

RETENTION

Over the past 18 months into the project over 523 participants, 60% BME

Strong sense of ownership of the Lascar stories by the young participants

Dynamic and challenging opportunities including curating a Lascar exhibition for the Museum of Croydon, learning aerial performance skills as in the rigging of a Tall Ship, making theatre for performance.

How young people were engaged/involved in the project?

Initial consultation on the idea with TARA ARTS’ youth group

Taster workshops linked to the Story of London Festival & Open Weekend

Participants formed Steering Group

The Research & Development phase including learning theatre and Heritage skills – visiting an archive, interpreting the findings and translating it into making theatre.

Intensive rehearsals with Tara Arts’ project team to transform a disparate group of young people into a capable performance troupe.

TARA ARTS: Sailing to Britain

What we know of the past 18 months and what next as we work toward London 2012.

Vision - A Local Value to London that is Global in its vision, linked the Olympics mission.

Transferable & scalable - and can scale up as our ultimate aim to is stage the show on a boat sailing up the River Thames.

Sustainable & Strategic - major partners notably the National Maritime Museum

Legacy – the partnerships, performance & young participants contribution to uncovering & making public the hidden stories of Lascars.

Wandsworth Council:

This global opportunity has given us local opportunities

Support ongoing and existing work in the borough

Work together to maximise the opportunity that it gives us

Sailing to Britain awarded the Inspire mark from LOCOG

We were delighted to be awarded the INSPIRE mark by LOCOG (the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) for SAILING TO BRITAIN.

A huge thanks from the team at TARA to our partners, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich Theatre, the Museum of Croydon, Croydon Clocktower and the Wandsworth Museum, the SAILING TO BRITAIN team and the fantastic young people from across the whole of London who participated in the project over the past eighteen months.

To date over 300 young people have participated and over 4000 people have attended the exhibition, performances and workshops.

Teachers and students wanting to know more about the project and to run National Curriculum related activities at Key Stage 4 can download the free Education Resource Pack from http://www.tara-arts.com/#/participate

Thanks to our project funders, Arts Council, London Councils, Heritage Lottery Fund and Wandsworth Council.

Hannah Brennan and Jusnara Zaman spent five days learning archiving and exhibition skills in autumn 2009 at the National Maritime Museum at the end of the week they presented a fantastic interactive exhibition including a glimpse a the Death Book and Lascar Death Certificates! The Museum staff, friends, family and the TARA project team where hugely impressed by the girls achievement.