St Basils young residents were recently given the opportunity to learn animation skills as part of a Community Outreach project organised by Town Hall Symphony Hall's (THSH) Education & Community department in partnership with local artists and with additional funding from GNC Trust and Birmingham City Councils' Arts Champions Scheme.
The project inspired by Bluebeard's Castle was an intergenerational project based around the Philharmonia Orchestra's world premiere performance of their new version of Bartok's opera at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. The project brought together 3 young people's groups and 2 community groups who were challenged to create their own artistic responses to the different rooms of Bluebeard's castle.
Accompanied by the St Basils Learning, Skills and Work team, young people from St Basils went to see the opera on its opening night back in October and then worked with local filmmaking company Reel Access to produce their response. St Basils young people chose to do a combination of film and animation to represent the Torture Chamber and the Armour. They were also responsible for the overall animations for the doors presented on the DVD contents page which brought together the artistic submissions from the other groups involved.
The young people from St Basils then explained the processes they had used at a presentation and screening event at Symphony Hall on 5th December 2011.
Reel Access Director George Fleming enthused; "It was great working with the young people from St Basils, they were such a fantastic group, so interested and hard working. I would be very happy to work with them again".
Juliet Raynsford, Creative Producer for THSH Juliet Raynsford, has worked with St Basils on previous projects and was very keen to collaborate further with young people and staff. She said : "What I love about working with St Basils is the commitment and enthusiasm of young people and staff. I always have a lot of fun when I work with St Basils and I find fun often leads to the best creative ideas... I was blown away by the quality of their animations and what they achieved in four days. They really put a new spin on the original story of the opera."
Gemma Ferati from St Basils Learning, Skills and Work team said: "The project was a huge success. The young people had a great time creating the animations and were thrilled with the finished DVD. They have all been awarded their Bronze Arts Award and have all shown an interest in getting involved in future projects. It was great to see the young people working together and supporting each other throughout the process".
Fay Todd, Community Engagement Manager at THSH said:
"This project has given THSH Education & Community the opportunity to work with groups that we have previously worked with who already know about what we do, but equally offer opportunities for new groups to get involved too. The beauty of this combination is that existing groups can advocate for the work and the experiences that they have had to enable new groups to feel comfortable and supported by the process enabling them to freely create and explore. It's equally been an important part of this project that groups of all ages and from two different constituencies have been able to work together and share ideas which breaks down barriers and aids community cohesion. It's been quite wonderful watching young people from St Basis responding to some of the elders work and vice versa".
Added December 2011
