When arts organisations embed participation into their core purpose, they can connect with exciting and radical ideas and ensure programmes thrive. Daniel Fulvio shares Rambert’s approach.
Aaron Akrong
At Rambert, we want to hear the most exciting, radical ideas, wherever they come from. We work with dancers and choreographers who bring diverse perspectives and new ways of seeing and feeling to the rehearsal studio and stage - as do our project participants.
Our cause is to support brilliant and daring people to push themselves to move the world forward. All our participation work shares a unifying provocation which asks participants for a degree of daring for positive effect, while we create the conditions to support it.
An example is our Dance for Wellbeing programme for Mind service-users in Greater Manchester. Led by a trauma-informed facilitator, the users reflect each week on how they are able to bravely immerse themselves in their creativity to explore their movement, releasing trauma held in their bodies.
One participant remarked on their huge surprise at finding their almost debilitating fatigue at the beginning of a session had all but gone by the end. Another example is the street parties outside our London studios where dance artists joyfully encourage communities to come together to move, take up space and feel free.
Future movement
This same impetus drives Future Movement, a youth voice project for 16–19-year-olds which began as a pilot in 2021. We didn’t want another dance or drama programme, but weekly sessions to support young people to explore their creativity in whatever shape or form they wanted, and to push their lives forward in positive ways.
We wanted Future Movement members to grow and thrive, and for Rambert to support and respond accordingly, but we didn’t know where the young people would take us. In the first year, a group of ten students from state schools in South London wanted to make a film about bravery combining performance poetry, monologue and dance (Brave, 2022). They went on to produce their own event for their peers with Ted-style talks from creatives working in a wide range of practices.
It was a formula that worked, using Rambert’s expertise and resources as a toolbox to support the development of young people. We now have Future Movement programmes in three UK locations, working with Touchstones Rochdale and Mansfield Palace Theatre, both of which recently became National Portfolio Organisations.
(L to R) Estelle, Savannah, Dami, Neithan and Robyn during a Future Movement session in Rambert’s South Bank Studios. Photo: Aaron Akrong.
Aspirational projects
With our cause still our guiding principle, we invested in these new, collaborative partnerships with organisations which fully share our purpose. This enabled us to set things up at speed and support each other in reaching mutual overarching objectives.
Working with Rochdale Borough Council, we’ve run a programme inspiring young people through creativity to develop them as future leaders. In Mansfield, the local authority is excited about the aspirations of the project and the impact it is already having on young people.
Through conversations with the young people and partners, we have taken a lot of care with the dynamics in each location. The programme has evolved from being ‘youth-led’ to something that is more co-creative.
Interesting things happen in the space. We listen and respond to what the young people want to do, the artists they want to work with and the topics they want to focus on. But we also share artists, practices and perspectives they may not have encountered to stimulate their imaginations. Our show Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby was, for many of them, their first encounter with contemporary dance.
Co-curative dynamic
This co-curative dynamic has also forged innovative outputs. Building on the success of Brave, we commissioned the young people to make a series of films about issues that mattered to them.
In these bitesize shows, they conducted a series of interviews with our dancers; Sam Bernard, a care home manager in Mansfield who refuses to subscribe to gender norms; Anita Okunde, a Member of Youth Parliament in Rochdale; and broadcast journalist Ben Hunte (Vice News) who shared his experience of being a black and queer journalist.
We’re a year into our partnership with Touchstones Rochdale and Mansfield Palace Theatre, working with some 30 motivated students from state schools in this targeted way, and shaping the work of our partner organisations on the way.
Future Movement Rochdale is sharing work as part of the Barmy Army at Manchester’s HOME, continuing the exploration of issues around mental health that were brought to light in their film; while the young people in Mansfield are submitting their film to the inaugural film festival of their hometown this summer.
Our flagship participation programme is shaping the output of our organisation because it was crafted to deliver Rambert’s core purpose. It is a programme centred around supporting and empowering daring young people to show up, push themselves and move the world forward.
And we gain the brilliant ideas they share with each other and us. This is win-win. And just one example of the power participation can have for arts organisations in the 21st century.
Daniel Fulvio is Deputy Director of Audiences (Community) at Rambert.
www.rambert.org.uk
@Rambertdance
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