My role in a community arts project

I researched CAOS which is a company based in Glasgow and work to strengthen community bonds and raise aspiration through quality community arts provision. The different roles include a project manager, volunteer coordinator, project worker, board member, volunteer and sessional team.

If i had to choose a role in this particular company i would be part of the sessional team because they come from a variety of back grounds, some are dance, drama, visual arts or music speciality. I would have to contact the project manager to work on the sessional basis.

A sessional worker is defined as a person not employed under a contract of employment. He/she is paid for undertaking work or a service on the basis of an agreed range of hours to be worked. This has to be within a specified period, or on an ad hoc arrangement to meet varying need.  

Toolbox theatre

“One young person I supervise, it’s quite frankly changed his life!”







Toolbox Theatre is committed to providing high quality participatory theatre and drama for young people and their communities. All of Toolbox Theatre’s work is designed and delivered to be focused, engaging and inspiring.










Past projects 
Their past projects prove how much progress they have made as a company and are still making right now. They take their projects very seriously and most of these projects are based on the problems young people face today but are portrayed in a way of helping the performers and audience to understand easier. This company also seems like a lot of fun to be part of and they allow the young people a to be free to express themselves. 

COME CAMP WITH ME – June 2013 Performed by all 55 members of CYT, this original piece of work was a full mask romp full of tents, tears and tantrums. Set on “Faulty Showers Campsite” we followed the antics of two friends through the 70′s, 80′s to the present day. On the way there was plenty of sweet love, bitter rivalry and scheming trickery. Come Camp with Me was supported by Bishops Cleeve Parish Council and the Rotary Club of Cheltenham Cleeve Vale.

HO STOLE THE KING’S CAKE – March 2013 Over three months Toolbox Theatre worked with Creative Media Diploma students from Cleeve School and Chipping Campden School to develop a promotion event for the launch of Cleeve Youth Theatre’s new Beginners group. The students devised ‘Who Stole the King’s Cake’ – an interactive piece of theatre designed to enthrall, engage and delight 5 -7 year olds.

I WANT HIM BACK - November 2012 Cleeve Youth Theatre created work around the ‘I want him back’. With interpretations of the sentence spanning from stories of bereavement, bullying, mental health and magical journeys; the evening was a testement to the talent and creativity of CYT.

TOILETHEAD! – August 2012  Toolbox Theatre and Cleeve School teamed up to bring together young people from across Bishops Cleeve for Summer School 2012. The participant created a devised piece of theatre exploring the worries, fears and anxieties that go hand in hand with moving up to secondary school.

THE WILLOW PATTERN – APRIL 2012 Presented by Cleeve Youth Theatre in partnership with Cleeve School. A story of a forbidden love,betrayal and friendship based on a Chinese tale. Forty young actors from CYT told this funny, moving and thought-provoking story through puppetry, music and dance.

DOG DOWN! – AUGUST 2011 This thrilling ‘WHO DUNNIT?’ murder mystery show was produced as part of our summer school week.

A DAY IN THE HILLS – JUNE 2011 Based on the memories of Bishops Cleeve residents, A Day in the Hills was a highly successful piece of theatre devised by the whole of CYT. Imaginative, energetic and touching theatre about country life during the 1930’-40’s; full of puppetry, music, song and dance. 

Ten Ten theatre

This community group really interested me as they have philosophy to "live life to the full."(which is why the name is "TenTen") I believe the focus on religion for this group really helps people(who may not understand) to understand why and what this group does. Clare has a background in finance and was the business manager for Christies auction house education department in London. Martin had a successful career as an actor (including stints in a West End musical and at the National Theatre) before becoming a freelance writer on television and radio drama.

The organisation employs over 30 actors and facilitators every year who work on a project-by-project basis. Each team member comes to the company with professional training and/or experience. The core team is completed by Anna O'Brien, Clare and Martin's mum, who works in a full-time voluntary capacity as the Adminstrator.

Rehearsing as a group

Friday was a very productive day, as we started to put all of our work to the performance space. he interesting thing was that the material we have is not very typical or obvious in any way, but very meaningful. We started off with a group of two's coming on stage one at a time to do the mirror/Columbian hypnotism exercise. We then pretend as if we are throwing something at the projecting(which is of a brick wall) to break it down. After this we go into our partners ambition movements and then have a sort of mini interview which portrays our similarities and differences. Each group then went off to rehearse their scenes, it was quite hard for our group as there were only three of us, but we came up with idea to adapt around this! It was interesting to see how the Turn around group are in a rehearsal as it required a lot of focus and repetition, which they may not have been used to!

Recording!!!

This morning the group for "These days" were in the recording studio!! I arrived a bit late, however i managed to make it in time for the singing vocals to be added on. This was really amazing as all of our work over the weeks has finally been taken and recorded professionally. It really how what team work and allowing different skills to be put into a project can get very far! I did not think there would be this much support and enthusiasm and this session really made me realise how close we have all become! It's so weird how today in the recording studio, it didn't feel like "BRIT and Turn around centre recording" it just felt like we were simply one team and all as one.

Turn around games and acting scenes

Today, the guys from turn-around hosted a different game which goes towards their Arts award. This was very fun as we were all very supportive and enthusiastic, however there was some loss of focus throughout the games. It was nice for the rolls to change as the BRIT people usually hosted the games and so it was nice to see a bit of a difference.

We then moved on to the acting scenes, where there were three separate groups. Two groups focused on real life situations (one from turn around, one from BRIT) and this was very effective as we were seeing it in a theatrical interpretation. The group that i am in, i believe it is very brave that the material we have is being expressed; i really think it will open people's eyes and help them to understand more about how words and bullying can effect people and families. Honestly, our group did lose a lot of focus (partly because we were missing the person we needed most) but i do think there should have been more focus on such a serious situation. Will (unintentionally) brought some Brecht style theatre into our piece, where he wanted to include signs, multi-role characters and make something serious appear comical. He was very happy finding out that his ideas were Brecht!

Progression and performing

Today we Split up into three groups to work on the songs we created. My group created a brand new song including: instruments, voice and rap. At first we improvised and it started to come together and sound really good. We were all supportive of each others ideas and now it needs a bit more work and cleaning.

One of the groups performed today and the progression was amazing. It sounded like it was already a successful song in the charts but of course it's a one of a kind ;) The fact that as a group we worked together and shared all of our skills to make such wonderful work. There were some aspects such as projection and confidence that needed some work, but that was only because they had performed that one time to an audience.

Theatre oppressed

The Origins of Theatre of the Oppressed Augusto Boal began his experimentations in participatory theatre in the 1950s and 60s while he was artistic director for the Arena Theatre in Rio de Janeiro. He went beyond the stage and organized performances with the Arena troupe in the streets, factories, unions, churches where they could reach the people of the favelas or slums of Rio. In 1971, Boal’s work drew the attention of the military dictatorship and he was arrested and tortured. After four months he was released and sent into exile, spending five years in Argentina, two in Portugal and eight in France before returning to his home in Rio.

Theatre of the Oppressed was born in 1971, in Brazil, under the very young form of Newspaper Theatre , with the specific goal of dealing with local problems – soon, it was used all over the country. Forum Theatre came into being in Peru, in 1973, as part of a Literacy Program; we thought it would be good only for South America– now it is practiced in more than 70 countries. Growing up, TO developed Invisible Theatre in Argentina, as political activity, and Image Theatre to establish dialogue among Indigenous Nations and Spanish descendants, in Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico... Now these forms are being used in all kinds of dialogues.

Future ambitions and sharing of work

Very progressive day today, we started off with some warm up games such as "the sunshine game", "hot and cold" and "heads up". We then played a trust game where we all had to close our eyes and memorize the person who stood in front of us by walking around the room to feel for them. This worked really well as we all kept our eyes shut and followed the rules making it very tricky but fun. It also showed that as a group we are comfortable with each other enough to play games like this without there being an loss of focus or any sort of restrictions.

We then came back and went into our groups for the songs, spoken word and dance. Everything is all coming together now and it is looking and sounding amazing which is very exciting as it was down to our team work and bonds we have made with each other.
We did an interesting activity which was filmed in different ways and locations on camera. This started off with finding a partner and letting them make 3 different shapes with the other person of the things they want in the future. This can be goals, dreams or even lifestyle changes. This was very interesting and everyone stayed focused and was very creative with how they portrayed the movement whether it was changing the levels, speed or the movement itself. It was quite difficult having to change the way the movement was when in the different locations and there was some loss of focus but in the end we ended up with a lot of good material on film!

The music in particular touched me today as the songs told a story (whether it be personal or not) of the different situations some younger people have to go through daily. It made me realise how people make their choices and why they make them, which is for many reasons. Mixing the rap and singing together was beautiful and it really gave a sense of equality and that there is not really a difference between us and them. The talent and potential is overwhelming and at first I didn't realise it would pan out like this!

Series of workshops and putting creative minds to work

The lesson today i think was the strongest session as we all really got involved in the activities. Although some faces have gone and new ones have arrived, the bond between the two groups is strong and we are making a lot of progress. today we did a fun singing warm up, a sort of creative story game and some workshops including: beat-boxing, spoken word and song making. We got a lot out of this as we saw peoples lives, emotions and opinions though the art of music and spoken word.

The songs are still work in progress and have fantastic lyrics along side of them... Particularly what interested us was the poem about education as it related to us all in different ways. I think a spoken word response to the video in some way would be interesting!

Monday partner games and acting workshop

Script from Love&Money!

On Monday before we started the partner games and the acting workshop, Matthew went through a rule list with us for everybody to follow. This was very helpful as it applied to each individual person so there's no inequality. Moreover we started off with some warm up/greeting games and then split up into three groups. In these three groups we played a game where we must get all the chairs to the other side of the room without  anybody touching the floor. This went really well(even though our group came last twice), the only downfall was when one of the groups won by not following the rules properly.

We then moved onto doing some acting where there were directors and actors. I bought in a couple of plays and ended up doing the duologue i bought in from Love&Money. Nikita and I were the actors and Josh was the director. This went really well as the scene was very dynamic and emotional and there was very good direction and support.

Matthew's amazing rules!

BRIT school and Turn around centre

On Friday, we finally met the youths we will be working with from the centre. At first i was a bit nervous then  i realised how they are not any different from us. They have passions and dreams, just like us and do truly want to achieve them but might not show it as much. When leading the "follow the leader" game, everybody was involved, taking part and enjoying themselves which made me very confident. Everybody fully engaged and had a part which did leave to having a successful first meet up!When speaking with the youths deeper, there is no doubt that they feel there is some sort of barrier from them achieving what they want to achieve, but with our help, we will let them finally get a start in what the performing arts feels like :)

NOTES NOTES NOTES!

 Diana called it "planets" i thought it was "mirror" but it's really the "Columbian hypnosis game" ;) ... Really fun, interactive and always remember not to be wild with the movement because it is taken in turns!

 Some of my very first notes.. should come in handy about the "name games" and what will work well!

More notes on some good activities, possible scenarios and how to deal with these situations!!!

research on community arts

Some snapshots from the research i found out about community arts and how they work. At first i did not have the slightest clue about the community arts and how it works, but i am starting to understand and learn a lot about it... especially with our lesson today, I've learnt that there is a lot of skills involved in making it happen.

Introduction to community arts and 4th wall

WONDERFUL workshop with a lovely woman named Diana today!!! We learnt some of the skills it takes to bond and communicate with other people when engaging in different activities.... GROUND RULES are essential!!!! The whole group came up with some different "name games" where in which we find out each other's names in a fun way without any kind of problems. This was a challenge as each game had it's pro's and con's but it was very interesting to know how different people may react to different activities and what it takes to deal with these situations.

"The 4th wall" to me symbolises that particularly within this project, there is no barrier or "4th wall" between us and the teenagers from the Turn around centre. When we are working together, it is all about equality and finding our similarities instead of our differences.

This is the place we will be working with to apply community arts skill. We started to learn about practitioner work and particularly a practitioner named "Boal" who is well known for trying to help people become free from oppression through his plays.