Tara Arts 2011 - SAILING TO BRITAIN @ the NATIONAL MARITIME MUSEUM

We are delighted to announce Tara Arts' Sailing to Britain performance will reach its final destination on Friday 28 October at 3pm at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Uncover the lives of Lascars, migrant sailors who were shipped to Britain from Africa and Asia by the East India Company. This dynamic performance by young people aged 14-22 who took part in Tara Arts' Sailing to Britain project over the past 3 years. Directed by Jules Tipton, Participation Officer Sarah Clews.

Location: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Lecture Theatre)

Free tickets will be available from the National Museum ticket desk

Suitable for ages 7+

email: admin@tara-arts.com for more

or call Tara Arts on 020 8333 4457

Sailing to Britain - the final journey, October 2011

In half-term from 24th to 29th October Tara Arts' young participants will stage the final performance of SAILING TO BRITAIN. The venue is as yet to be confirmed. Watch this space.

Call Tara Arts on 020 8333 4457

or email: admin@tara-arts.com

From our project partner on Sailing to Britain, the National Maritime Museum.... A fantastic opportunity

Youth Advisors Wanted!

The National Maritime Museum's Youth Advisory Group is having a Recruitment Day on Saturday 26 February for you to have a go, find out more and have fun. The Group is open for 13-21 year olds to make the Museum relevant for young people through consultation and creating events. If you want to get involved, get in touch with Shauna at SAO'Brien@nmm.ac.uk

And here are links to the video:

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/about/youth/youth-advisory-group/ - this links to our page with lots more info!

http://vimeo.com/18477245 - Vimeo film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5DjPXhd6MA - YouTube film

The National Maritime Museum are currently recruiting for Youth Advisors to join the Youth Advisory Group (YAG). The Group is open for 13-21 year olds to meet once a month to make the Museum relevant for young people. We have a Recruitment Day coming up on Saturday 26 February, 12-14:30 here at the Museum. The day is free and will be a fun opportunity to have a go and find out more. This can be booked by emailing me directly and I will add young people's contacts to a list.

What is YAG?

The YAG is open for 13-21 year olds who want to make the Museum relevant to young people through organising events and workshops, acting as Museum consultants, going behind the scenes to explore the Museum and sharing their ideas with others. The YAG is a great opportunity for young people to get involved in their local community, learn new skills in a professional setting, build their confidence by taking part and having a voice and be creative.

Who are the youth advisors?

At present, our Youth Advisors are from all different backgrounds and with interests in history, politics, science, finance, sports and geology. We welcome any young people that want to add something new and different to their record of achievement and CV.

What opportunities are available?

Now is an exciting time to get involved here at the National Maritime Museum (which encompasses Royal Observatory Greenwich and the Queen’s House in addition to National Maritime Museum). We are in the process of building a new wing, with new archives and galleries to advise on. The YAG is making a difference to the Museum today and also the way it will be experienced in the future.

How much commitment is required?

The YAG meets informally once a month outside of school hours, with opportunities to take on more responsibilities during school holidays to gain extra experiences.

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.

Congratulations - Arts Award success!

The team at TARA are delighted to congratulate Ross Binfield, Raychell Mack, Saif Beejay, Hannah Phillips and Hannah Brennan on being awarded a Bronze ARTS AWARD for their contribution to and participation in SAILING TO BRITAIN this year.

Sailing to Britain - telling untold stories of Lascars

Presentations from the SAILING TO BRITAIN exhibition at the Museum of Croydon, summer 2010. Highlighting the untold stories of Lascars and the young people's acheivements who are participating in the project.

PUPPETRY WORKSHOP with TARA & Puppet Centre

An invitation to young people and SAILING TO BRITAIN participatants to take part in a day of interactive puppet making with Sara Ekeneger and Alison Alexander of the Puppet Centre - we promise a fun-filled workshop.

Learn to make different types of puppet, how to manipulate them and create a story performance - all in one day!

Part of TARA's Arts and Heritage project SAILING TO BRITAIN http://sailingtobritain.blogspot or www.tara-arts.com for more!

Saturday 15 May 10am to 4pm
For 14 to 22 years
ALL places £3.50
Call 0208 333 4457 to book a place on the

Arts Beat supports SAILING TO BRITAIN

Arts Beat is TARA’s young people’s theatre scheme. We are aged between 14 and 22 years and have been creating shows and developing arts projects with TARA since summer 2007.

There are over 15 young people in Arts Beat and we live and study in Wandsworth and south London. We love what we do at TARA Studio and so far we have been in three Shakespeare productions and two massive shows in Trafalgar Square for India Now and the Beijing Olympics Torch Relay last year.

The people at TARA listen to us and what we want to achieve. We met with Jonathan, Jatinder and Claudia from TARA earlier this year to talk about SAILING TO BRITIAN and the lascars project.

We are really excited about this project, Husnara Zaman one of our group is going to help with the marketing this year and some of us are on the steering group to help promote the project and decide what happens.

We will be involved in the workshops to research the history of lascars; going out to see archives, museums and find lascars stories from across London and we are really looking forward to creating the exhibition for Croydon Clocktower and learning about making a website. It will be great to work with other young people from across London as well.

We think its really important that young people from different cultures get to find out about our shared past so that we can learn from each other and get an understanding about what lascars actually experienced when they came to London.

taraartsbeat@googlemail.com

http://taraartsbeat.blogspot.com/

Pauline Nakirya, Justnara Shuma Zaman, Sarah Ball, Joanna Scott, Remaine Slight, Katie Brazier, Amal Ismali, Husnara Zaman, Joycelyne Praman, Illena Christoforou, Mukul Ahmed, Filiz Ozcan, Murat Ozcan, Ayshen.

SAILING TO BRITAIN

An interactive summer project led by TARA which will end in a major performance on the River Thames in London 2012.

If your are aged between 14 to 19 years and want to research and perform a new piece of theatre inspired by lascars - migrant seafarers from India, China and West Africa - contact TARA Studio, Greenwich Theatre and Croydon Clocktower, or call 0208 333 4457, admin@tara-arts.com.

We will be running taster workshops at all 3 venues in June for the Story of London.

SAILING TO BRITIAN is supported by London Councils and Arts Council England.