Giants, rivers and dancing queens: Thoughts on participation

As Inside Out Dorset 2025 approaches, I realise it is 20 years since I was invited – along with Simon Chatterton – to put together a vision for creating a programme of outdoor work across Dorset.

I was already ten years into my professional journey of working with art in the public realm, a development from the more experimental festivals of NOTTDance and Barclays New Stages in Nottinghamshire which I had led in the 90s. Simon and I shared a belief in the power of art presented – ideally for free – in the public realm to attract a wide and diverse audience.

We travelled the byways and highways, visiting beaches, hilltops and forts, met many people and created the vision of Extraordinary Events in Extraordinary Places. This resulted in the first festival programme presented two years later, to which we brought some of the best outdoor work in the world – from the UK, Switzerland, France, Catalonia and Poland.

Dorset was experimenting with a trial Arts Council England (ACE) programme called Cultural Hubs which brought together schools, heritage and arts organisations. This enabled a large-scale project inspired by the work of French fire magicians Cie Carabosse to bring hundreds of children, teachers and artists together for a programme culminating in a large-scale presentation alongside the hugely popular Fire Gardens.

Participation is at the heart

Participation is at the heart of our 2025 programme, with the culmination of three national projects. The first, River of Hope, is about climate change, young people’s concerns and reflections run by Thames Festival Trust. Beach of Dreams is a UK-wide coastal arts festival led by Kinetika, exploring the unique heritage, cultures and futures of our coastlines in the face of the climate emergency. And Nature Calling is a National Landscapes Association and Activate project aiming to inspire and connect new and existing communities with national landscapes in England.

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Nature Calling, Yeovil Together. Photo: Archie Rowell

All have offered up the space for co-creation to many hundreds of people from diverse backgrounds. As large-scale projects, all have benefitted from national awards from ACE (and others), and the significant additional resources Activate has brought from other funders will create strong audience experiences for many thousands of people.

In 2025, we are halfway through ACE’s  10-year Let’s Create overarching strategy and these national projects are both a testament to it and the clear funding decisions made to support work that foregrounds public space, co-creation and participation.

Huge commitment alongside deep community engagement

None of this would exist without the huge commitment of artists and arts organisations to further develop an aspect of our practice that we have been pursuing for decades. The quality of the processes that Activate’s participation lead, Caroline Suri, and Dorset National Landscape’s Sue Dampney set up with Becca Gill of Radical Ritual to engage with people from Yeovil (an ACE Priority Place) were exemplary.

The local steering groups and deep community engagement resulted in the rich process with young people with special educational needs; adults with learning disabilities; refugees and asylum seekers. Inspired by their excursions into the Dorset National Landscape and the many workshops, I look forward to the new 40 metre giant these people have made, separately and together.

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Inside Out Dorset, River of Hope. Photo: Thames Festival Trust

It is now almost impossible to work in secondary state schools post year 8, with their focus on attainment and the overwhelming admin teachers face, so it has been particularly rich to have an extended period of engagement with five secondary schools to develop River of Hope.

The results made by the Dorset and Hampshire young people are beautifully insightful and I know will sit well alongside work from all the national and international locations we are presenting in Christchurch at the confluence of the Avon and Stour rivers.

Anything’s possible and everyone’s invited

I was recently in Weymouth College to witness the commitment and creative energy of Activate’s dance producer Michaela Shaw and Kinetika’s Charlene Lowe as they worked with six student and community dance groups creating the culmination of Beach of Dreams a reality with Attakalari’s Sonnet of Samsara. These are groups meet year-round and are incredibly well supported by their leaders without whom they wouldn’t be able to be part of this project.

I was in Bengalaru in India last February for the premiere of Sonnet of Samsara, a dance work choreographed by Jayachandran Palazhy. There, a danced parade of Kinetika’s beautiful flags through the thronged streets of the city was followed by a stunning presentation at the site of their new international performance centre.

In Weymouth, these elements will be joined by gig boats, giant dancing carnival queens and pyrotechnics with the 100-plus local performers as well as the professional dancers from the UK and India. They will play to audiences of thousands as the procession winds through the streets ending with a performance on the giant beach stage flanked by the hundreds of flags made by people from across the four nations – a fitting finale for Beach of Dreams.

I am so looking forward to witnessing the interest, joy and pleasure these projects and the rest of the Inside Out Dorset programme will bring to the audiences in the coming weeks – with our commitment to artists, internationalism, active participation, co-creation and Activate’s belief in anything’s possible and everyone’s invited.

Inside Out Dorset 2025 runs from 12 to 21 September.