artSites Birmingham is a community arts development agency that started in 1998, writes Louisa Davies. The artSites are community venues, based in schools and community leisure centres in areas of high social exclusion with little or no other arts provision. They deliver a programme of activity in partnership with local people of all ages, incorporating professional performances and exhibitions, an extensive range of participatory projects and training in the skills associated with running an arts programme.
The synergy created by the combination of these three strands of activity has been the driving force behind the work of artSites Birmingham. In-school residencies from arts companies have frequently been a key element in developing an audience for a professional show. Work created in a dance residency is presented as a curtain-raiser, thereby encouraging family and friends to attend an evening of contemporary dance that they might otherwise have been reluctant to try. For the schools involved in the local partnerships, the National Curriculum has always been an influencing factor in what the artSites choose for their programme, not only to enable teachers to apply the themes of a show or workshop in class time and augment pupils? learning, but also to support audience development for the artSites programme.
As schools become more experienced, they also become more adventurous, proposing new ways to work to develop new projects that not only form part of the performance programme, but have an educational outcome, and involve companies devising new work. A recent project at Colmers Farm artSite has seen Birmingham-based Schism Theatre working with GCSE Drama pupils. The project considered an imaginary National Health Service (NHS), where it is guaranteed that if you need to see a doctor, you can straightaway. The catch is that you can only use the NHS once a year; on your birthday you are given a card, and once you?ve used it, that?s it. The pupils explored the moral and emotional issues that this scenario would produce, creating pieces of theatre entitled ?The Choice? to perform to local people, while Schism Theatre devised work to link the pupils? pieces.
This project has involved all the final GCSE Drama year at Colmers Farm School, and the work they have created also formed their practical examination piece. Jon Morris of Schism Theatre has found working in this way a very fulfilling experience: ?What we tried to do was give the pupils as many tools as we could for devising and creating new pieces of theatre and then to let them use these tools in whatever way they felt was appropriate. A project like this gives pupils a great balance in terms of their learning too ? the teacher ensuring that the needs of the curriculum are met and the artist concentrating on making the experience as rich and rewarding as possible. Consequently, both teacher and artist push each other forward, both dictating the pace of learning in turns.?
Louisa Davies is Programme and Communications Officer at artSites.
t: 0121 440 5213; e: {louisa.davies@ artsites.org.uk}; w: http://www.artsites.org.uk