Local authority involvement in collaborative arts projects can help communities explore new avenues. Ian Martin looks at a music project in Wiltshire that did just that.
Take four district arts officers, add one county music service, mix with one rural touring scheme, one music centre and one regional orchestra, stir in three arts festivals and one youth arts development agency. Leave them to stew for 18 months, add cash from three funders before recruiting one animateur, four co-animateurs and a work placement volunteer from a national retailer. Throw these raw ingredients into four rural villages in Wiltshire and leave to simmer for six months. Do not allow the ingredients to overheat! After numerous workshops and rehearsals under the warm glow of a BBC local radio station, the mixture will have risen and will be ready to be consumed by audiences at two festivals. Sprinkle applause generously over your final creation.
Warning ? if you have not cooked up an arts project with these ingredients before, please seek professional advice. Your recipe could end up being half-baked! In the case of Wiltshire, the list of ingredients has led to the creation of ?Big Ideas, Mini Operas?, a community music project that has drawn together five local authorities ? Kennet, North Wiltshire, Salisbury and West Wiltshire district councils and Wiltshire County Council ? and various arts organisations to form a partnership never seen before in the county. Funded principally by Arts Council England and Sustain the Plain, ?Big Ideas Mini Operas? offers residents living in four villages an opportunity to create a mini opera based on historical or modern-day characters, events or stories. Working with animateur Barry Russell and four musicians recruited locally, the communities will create an opera and perform it in their villages, as well as at Salisbury Arts Centre as part of Salisbury International Arts Festival and Wiltshire Music Centre as part of Corsham Festival.
The project was inspired by a desire by both local authorities and arts organisations, including Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Devizes Festival, Rural Arts Wiltshire, Wiltshire Music Centre and Wiltshire Youth Arts Partnership, to work together strategically to develop the arts at grassroots level. All partners also shared the aim of raising the profile of the arts within Wiltshire. Ever since the early planning stages 18 months ago, each partner has played a key role in the development and implementation of the project. With a venture of this nature, it is easy to underestimate the time and commitment needed to devise, develop and deliver a successful project that meets the local, artistic and strategic goals of each partner organisation.
While at the start it was assumed that each organisation worked in the same way with the same strengths, it has become apparent that, in fact, each has very different skills. While the arts organisations have strong backgrounds in project delivery, the district arts officers offer experience of drawing up contracts and partnership agreements and play a critical role in advocating the project among officers and councillors within their own councils. Therefore, before embarking on a partnership project of this nature, it is vital to identify each partner?s area of strength and need so that everyone is actively involved and committed.
With no assigned project leader, there has been an emphasis on defining clear roles for each partner and a clear reporting structure so that each partner can be confident the project is moving forward. Without such a structure, actions could fall between the different partners ? causing the whole endeavour to suffer as a result. Getting the branding, crediting and publicity right is important with a project involving five local authorities and up to eight arts organisations. The wrong branding could give the impression that it is either a local authority run project or an arts project. Appointing one PR contact who liaises with the other partners has helped to ensure the project is communicated coherently and strategically to the press and public.
By drawing on the expertise and resources of 13 different organisations a much larger developmental project can be delivered than would be possible by any of the partners working alone. With the current pressures on local authority spending on the arts, working strategically together on a project that has artistic merit in its own right but also delivers many of the local authorities? objectives is a powerful recipe for success!
To contact Ian Martin,
t: 01249 701628;
e: info@ruralartswiltshire.org.uk;
w: http://www.ruralartswiltshire.org.uk