Interact is a Saturday morning youth theatre project, offering young people (aged 14-19), intensive drama training through a network of centres running in four London boroughs: Westminster, Newham, Hackney and Redbridge. At the end of each year, the groups come together for a combined public performance in the West End. Interact will culminate this year, with a showcase at the Criterion Theatre on Saturday 7th November 2009. Interact encourages dialogue between young people from different backgrounds, cultures and postcodes, providing a way for the participants to engage with important issues. Young people can enhance their presentation and communication skills as well as increasing their confidence and their belief in their own abilities. Each two-hour participatory workshop introduces new acting skills, movement techniques, dance styles, vocal work and singing tuition. Interact also offers young people opportunities to learn about technical theatre (lighting and set design), to go on theatre visits and backstage tours and to take part in performance masterclasses with well known actors. Each group has its own separate identity, with the groups sharing the same methodology and artistic programme that is linked through a common curriculum and a series of exchange visits. Each term, young people nominate and vote for 'ambassadors' to represent them on exchange visits with the other groups. Participants are justifiably proud of their creative achievements, but it is the social element of making new friends and working with other talented young Londoners that gives some of the students most satisfaction. The exchange visits have also helped to counter the widespread culture of territorial insularity, prevalent in London. Participants also have the opportunity to work towards a Bronze or Silver Arts Award accreditation.

The Hackney Cultural Ambassadors programme is currently developing the next generation of cultural leaders which enables young people to combine their passions for drama, dance and music, with the opportunity to comment on the local arts scene . The Cultural Ambassadors programme was first commissioned by Hackney Council in 2007 and is run by Eastside in partnership with Hackney Youth Service. The group meets weekly at The Lower Eastside to inform their peers about local arts provision and to comment on Hackney's youth arts festival Discover Young Hackney (DYH). The Cultural Ambassadors document and evaluate the DYH events and empower teenage festival goers to directly feedback their views to the Cultural Development team at Hackney Council. They also input into the festival's programming, marketing and the design of DYH promotional materials. In addition to this the Cultural Ambassadors put on their own festival event each year.  In 2008, local musical talent was showcased in Da Shoreditch Sound and then in 2009, the Cultural Ambassadors developed the Discover Young Hackney Cultural Awards hosting their own awards ceremony at Ocean as part of the festival's official closing event. The Cultural Ambassadors have also conducted a series of youth consultations for community organisation, London Youth in local primary schools and with other youth groups. They visited the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) to report on youth engagement in Hackney - one of London's five Olympic Boroughs. The Cultural Ambassadors will continue this association throughout the Cultural Olympiad and are also linking with youth groups in America to work on a joint film and photography project. Furthermore we proudly announce that one of our Cultural Ambassadors; Rhasan Brunner, (14) was recently elected as a member of the UK Youth Parliament. 

Discover Young Hackney - Festival website
Deutsche Bank Art Collection - newsletter

Hackney Impact Arts Academy (HIAA) encourages young people's talents and ambitions by providing a programme of professional arts based training for local teenagers. The project is delivered in partnership by three Hackney based youth-empowerment organisations in the form of dance and movement with Eastside, music with Rising Tide and film with Mouth that Roars. The project is designed to develop the skills of young people who are not  in education, employment or training (NEET) and is delivered through a series of positive interventions on local Hackney estates and in community centres, youth groups and special schools. HIAA targets young people who have been disempowered by formal education and offers the participants opportunities for development within art-forms that hold wider appeal. The project provides significant opportunities for young people who feel socially and culturally disenfranchised, to get involved with groups of like-minded young people and to take part in a structured programme of positive activities. Eastside offers young people the opportunity to get involved in a varied range of dance workshops including Hip Hop, Street Dance, Contemporary Dance, Break Dance, Body Percussion, Capoeira and Musical Theatre. Furthermore HIAA participants recently worked with the Richard Alston Dance Company at The Place and have attended the Breakin' Convention, the London Youth Dance Festival and a number of professional dance shows. By participating, young people are able to improve their skills and successfully work together as a team, resulting in individuals who are open to exploration and sharing ideas. HIAA also offers young people practical support in deciding their future and provides opportunities for accreditation through the Arts Award at Bronze or Silver level.

Graphic Truths is a collaborative, cross art-form project exploring graphic novels, comic books and illustrated writing. The project involves professional artists, illustrators, poets and writers, working in partnership with young people (aged 11 - 25). Graphic Truths aims to broaden the experiences of young people who are drawn to comics and the Japanese Manga style of illustration by introducing them to other artistic influences. Eastside was awarded a research and development bursary from Arts Council England to develop models of innovative and high quality collaborations between visual artists, writers and young people. As part of this programme we run projects and workshops in libraries and schools as well as at the Lower Eastside. A grant from Mediabox has enabled Eastside to introduce young people to industry professionals within publishing to produce their own magazines over which they have creative, technical and managerial control. Working with a range of visual storytellers offers valuable opportunities for young people to discover new approaches to creating and developing original narratives which are widely distributed. The project helps participants to improve their drawing skills, with an equal focus on writing and storytelling and is designed to help young people find their own artistic voice. Participants have interviewed people at a local library to create a piece of graphic reportage, created graphic poetry on T-shirts inspired by their favourite music to form an unusual art installation, created large scale comic books inspired by block printing, and produced a graphic memoir in a weekend. Art work produced is being exhibited at Homerton Library in September 2009 as part of the Write to Ignite festival.

Tales of Diversity - Graphic magazine (13 MB)
Graphic Truths - Artists' blog
Graphic Truths - Interview audio podcast

Creative School Communities has been running since 1998, and is financially supported by Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. The project, which currently involves eight local primary schools in Tower Hamlets and more than 2000 children, provides opportunities for schools to increase their creative offer across the whole school community. The project was devised to improve children's literacy and was later expanded to support teachers in delivering a creative curriculum and to include family learning with parental workshops and teachers' INSETs. Eastside has developed and delivered a range of popular and highly successful workshops in each of the participating schools with projects linking neighbouring primary schools with local secondary schools in order to incorporate a vital transitional element into the programme. Activities have included performance poetry workshops with spoken word artists, a dance programme to engage boys, photography and puppet making projects, creative aerobics both for children and their parents and storytelling workshops. Some schools used these workshops to attract parents that haven't previously engaged with the school; in other cases workshops were used as a way to increase the parents' own skills or to give them a forum to discuss their aspirations for their children. Parents recently created a wall hanging which captured their hopes and dreams for their children's futures. Teachers are also encouraged to take part in the workshops so that they can learn new skills as well as developing creative new approaches to teaching and learning.

National Poetry Day (NPD) held annually in October, is an opportunity for people all over the UK to take part in a celebration of great poetry. Each year, Eastside mark the occasion with our annual Poetry Slam, which is held in a major West End theatre and brings together up to 1000 primary school children from a number of local schools. Slam poetry is the competitive art of performance poetry and combines original writing with presentation skills and public speaking. The poems written by young people are judged and points are awarded for content, originality and performance. In the summer term schools are invited to participate in the project and teachers take part in a training workshop which introduces them to the fundamentals of spoken word, including beatbox and rap. Once the new academic year is underway in September, the participating schools each receive visits from some of the finest performance poets on the circuit to kick-start their celebration in order to inspire and motivate the children. These poets perform some of their own poetry in a whole school assembly before leading workshops to get the participants creating and performing their own original poems and raps. Schools then choose teams of children to represent them at the Poetry Slam. When the competition day finally arrives the participating teams battle it out in friendly rivalry , as they compete to win the trophies and poetry anthologies awarded as prizes.  The tension and enthusiasm can be felt in equal measure as the competition builds and the excitement grows. It is amazing to hear thousands of excited young voices screaming and cheering in unison for their favourites poems and young poets. The children's poems are judged by a panel of poetry experts and enthusiasts drawn from the world of arts, literature and politics. National Poetry Day 2009 will be held on Thursday, 8th October and its theme will be 'Heroes and Heroines'. Eastside organises and runs Poetry Slams for individual schools throughout the year, as well as arranging visits from our varied selection of poets and writers.

Westminster Poetry Slam - selected poems

In the year 2000, Eastside took part in McDonald's Our Town Story, part of the New Millennium Experience at the Millennium Dome in London. Our Town Story invited children from every local education authority across the UK, to perform the story of their local communities through drama, dance, music and song to 1500 people in the Millennium Dome. Westminster City Council commissioned Eastside to represent 2000 years of history live on stage, with a cast of 40 children from local schools. We created a performance that combined physical theatre, dance, carnival and film to tell the story of a day in the life of the City of Westminster - the political and cultural heart of the capital. The performance took place in Autumn 2000, but preparations had begun much earlier in the year. Young people from across Westminster took part in workshops throughout the summer holidays to undertake research, learn new performance skills and develop their ideas which were fed into the final piece. Musician and composer Patrick Nunn wrote and conducted an original musical score as a soundtrack to accompany the show, which was performed by a full youth orchestra from Trinity College of Music. The score perfectly captured the relentless energy of the city and the final performance took the audience on an unforgettable journey through 24-hours in Westminster. Taking as its starting point, the beauty and mystery of the city as described in Wordsworth's poem 'Composed on Westminster Bridge', the piece opened with sleepy eyed commuters rising in the early morning to make their way to work, transitioning through the frenetic energy of rush hour, to the more relaxed pace of street performers and shoppers. The show also featured the political heart of the city, Westminster's parks and gardens, the Notting Hill Carnival and the vibrant West End. The back-drop to the performance was a 20-minute film, which can be viewed below.

Our Town Story - film

Superhero Shorts is a project that was created to support children at primary school who have literacy difficulties, by helping them develop strategies to cope with learning in mainstream classrooms and to find ways to express themselves confidently and creatively. Superhero Shorts takes place during school time and uses the comic book theme of superheroes along with drama and film to engage and inspire the participants to want to write and create  original characters and stories that they can then share with their friends. The young people meet in groups and work together to devise and script their own one-act plays, which they go on to perform in a school assembly (a considerable achievement for all the children involved). The children can then observe their plays being rehearsed by professional actors and later performed at a local community theatre or arts centre to an invited audience of classmates, family and friends. The very fact that the plays are written by the children and performed by professional actors immediately raises the status of the participants amongst their peers and increases their confidence in their own achievements. The project takes a cross art-form approach using film clips, cartoons and stills as inspiration to support children who are more visually aware and to help minimise the fear that words could hold for them. Drama exercises are used to express and communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings. The group can then explore the arising human intentions, motivations and consequences, which will become the written narratives of their superhero stories. National Curriculum literacy objectives are reinforced throughout the project and every child is given scope to explore their own ideas and imagination through movement, art, drama, speech and writing. Each child participates in the creation of a piece of collaborative writing and will receive a written copy of their own superhero short story at the end of the project.

Write Up Your Street is a young writers' (aged 16 - 19) mentoring programme that is designed to give aspiring young writers the opportunity to develop their creative writing skills under the guidance of a professional published writer and see their own work printed on to posters and postcards.  These are displayed publicly on buses and on advertising billboards in prime sites across London. The project offers rare insights into the literary and publishing world by introducing participants to journalism, media and writing books. Clear objectives, such as, writing to deadlines, understanding the commissioning process, contracts and royalties, are set. Write Up Your Street starts out as an open writing competition for young people where students are invited to enter their own original writing in any one of the following five categories: short fiction, play writing, screen writing, reportage and poetry. Entries are then shortlisted by a panel of professional writers and the ten nominated students each 'win' a three-month mentorship with a professional published writer. Some very prestigious writers have been mentors on Write Up Your Street, including Frederick Forsyth, Sharman Macdonald, Gurinder Chadha, Brian Patten, Rachel Seiffert, Jefferson Hack, Susan Elderkin, Philip Ridley, Toby Litt, Tobias Hill, Todd Swift, Lin Coghlan, Jenny LeCoat, Anji Loman Field, Rob Young, Francesca Beard, Philip Wells, Adisa, Matt Thorne, Alex Clark, Mark Norfolk, Mike Ripley, Robin Hooper and Kristine Underdown (pictured). Write Up Your Street is distinctive because of the intensive nature of the mentorships and the investment that it makes in individual young writers. In addition, Eastside run a number of other writing workshops with authors and poets, publishing projects, reading groups and book clubs - to get involved or to find out more - please contact us.

Write Up Your Street - extracts of published work

Play The Critic, was developed by Eastside in partnership with Mousetrap Theatre Projects and supports sixth form and college students (aged 16+) to review theatre productions, dance performances, concerts and art exhibitions.  The programme develops participants' critical thinking and analysis skills and helps students to express their thoughts and opinions in writing, extending their use of theatre, dance and art terminology and developing a language of art criticism. The project supports young people who have difficulty deconstructing artistic experiences and expressing their views about what they've seen. Play The Critic offers students a masterclass in how to write reviews.  These classes are led by theatre critics and professional writers, together with a director, choreographer or curator and after the masterclass, the students each select live performances or exhibitions to attend, which they will then review, adhering to a set word limit (350 -500 words), akin to a published newspaper review. Critics then visit the schools and have individual tutorials with the students where they offer help and advice to improve or refine each student's work. Some of the most respected theatre critics including Michael Coveney (Daily Mail), Michael Billington (Guardian), Lyn Gardner (Guardian), Kate Bassett (Independent), Paul Taylor (Independent), Charles Spencer (Telegraph), Carol Woddis (Glasgow Herald) and Matt Woolf (Variety), have all taken part and helped students to develop a confident writing style of their own. Play The Critic also aims to develop an appreciation and enjoyment of theatre, dance and art amongst young people and encourages students to attend performances and exhibitions independently. A Play The Critic teachers' resource pack is also available, which contains helpful advice and information on writing reviews, crib sheets, discussion topics and further activities. To get involved or to find out more - please contact us.

Play The Critic - Guardian Education feature

Dance Synergy is a 'pro-am' style dance company run by Eastside, in partnership with Chisenhale Dance Space in Bow, East London. Professional dancers and choreographers work and perform together with young people as part of the same combined dance company. The group, including young people who have never previously been involved in youth dance, share and develop their skills in regular Saturday morning dance classes and workshops. Dance Synergy gives its members - dance practitioners from a number of different disciplines and young people from across Tower Hamlets - the opportunity to combine their talents and stretch each others abilities and experiences. This results in an exciting fusion of all the different dance styles and disciplines brought to the mix, which comprises of Contemporary Dance fused with elements of Latin, Street, Jazz, Indian and African Dance. During the summer holidays, the company meets for an intensive week of rehearsals to choreograph and present new work, often drawing inspiration from specialist guest workshops and masterclasses which have included: Bollywood and Kalaripayattu - an Indian martial art form; Salsa, Samba and Gafiera; traditional African dances from East and West Africa; and exploring dance for camera and commissioning new choreography for a performance showcase. Students are given responsibility for their own skills development and fitness levels, two dance captains are voted in each term with additional responsibility to run warm-ups and lead some sessions. Working in a professional dance space is a vital component in the mix; the young people respond very positively to being in an environment which enables them to develop skills in a professional way and outside of a school context. Performing alongside professionals also raises young people's confidence, levels of achievement and aspirations. Each year, the Dance Synergy ensemble takes part in public performances at Chisenhale Dance Space, at Eastside's charity gala and at local East End festivals and events.

Short Cuts To Literacy was developed in partnership with Creating Success - the Education Action Zone (EAZ) in Lewisham. The core objective of the project is to improve young people's writing in relation to character development, story structure and descriptive writing. To meet this objective, Short Cuts to Literacy uses film and moving image as a stimulus to help develop children's literacy skills and increases their understanding of written text including stories and film scripts.   Although traditionally defined as the ability to read and write, literacy is now understood to be the ability to locate, evaluate, use and communicate using a spectrum of media resources including text, visual, audio and video. Children today are visually literate, inherently know what is happening in film and are very sophisticated viewers. With this in mind, Short Cuts To Literacy balances watching pre-selected film clips, discussion and presentation with an exploration of the central ideas through drama. A wide range of films and film-clips are used, such as, black and white films, foreign language films (with the subtitles off - received excitedly and positively), animation, live action films and films that may be more recognisable to the children. At the end of the project, participants vote on the clips they have enjoyed the most and the results often surprise their teachers, as the students select sub-titled or arthouse films most readily.  Each session focuses on a different aspect of the films being studied with topics that include: people, places, plots and problems. Although one of the primary objectives of the workshop is to engage more reluctant literacy learners, the project has proven successful in improving the quality of young people's writing and increasing students' attainment.

Eastside was commissioned by Rex Hall Associates to undertake a national consultation with arts and cultural organisations throughout England and to develop a model for Performing For Success (PFS) based on the highly successful and effective Playing for Success, which puts classrooms at the heart of major sporting venues. PFS will establish study support centres, out of school hours, at a number of major arts and cultural institutions using the 'wow factor' of professional venues to engage under-achieving students. Eastside has devised and delivered a number of pilot projects as part of Find Your Talent  in Tower Hamlets and in partnership with major arts venues, including Rich Mix Cinema, Royal Albert Hall, Sadler's Wells Theatre, Ambassador Theatre Group, Phoenix Cinema, Really Useful Theatre Group, London College of Fashion, Ritzy Cinema and the Institute of International Visual Arts (INIVA). PFS is designed to raise standards in literacy and numeracy through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and aims to provide innovative and challenging learning experiences for young people at primary and secondary schools who are under-achieving. The programme takes place for two hours a week, over a ten week period. Young people begin by meeting members of staff from the host organisation - from front of house to backstage crew - which provides young people with the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the different roles and careers available within the creative industries. Students then participate in a film screening, watch a performance (or rehearsal) or tour an exhibition and then write a review expressing how they feel about what they have seen. Through this experience, students will also learn about the creative process from producing, directing and casting, to the technical aspects of stage management, wardrobe, lighting, sound and set design, right through to marketing and budgeting. The pilot projects will be used to develop a national programme that can be rolled out more widely in England and Wales.

Arts Extend was a national pilot funded by Arts Council England in 2007 that ran in nine local authorities across the country and involved more than 60 schools. Eastside was commissioned by the City of Westminster to deliver the only pilot in London for Arts Extend working with six schools in the borough, including an early years centre, three primary schools, an academy and a special school. Extended schools (schools that provide additional activities from 8am - 6pm) help to deliver the aims of Every Child Matters: a government initiative calling for all organisations involved in providing services to children and young people to work together towards five key outcomes. Eastside led a consultation with the pupils, teachers and parents at each of the participating schools. The resulting programme included a range of high-energy arts activities as well as workshops more suited for contemplative study. 250 children and 50 parents took part in the pilot programme which included; storytelling and drama workshops (involving parents and children working together), Bollywood dance (where secondary school students developed their peer mentoring skills working with pupils from neighbouring primary schools), feltmaking workshops, poetry, rap, art and ceramics. The success of the programme was due to careful consultation at every stage. Eastside worked closely with the family liaison units at each school to build on, develop and extend what was already being provided. Arts Extend has also helped to inform Eastside's extended schools provision, which runs London-wide and now includes study support, family learning and parents' workshops. It also provides a varied menu of after school activities including drama and dance, music tuition, arts and crafts and visits to museums, galleries and theatres - all of which give parents the opportunity to explore the arts in school, working alongside their children.

Arts Extend - Arts Council report featuring Eastside's projects (p. 19 - 20)

Eastside was commissioned by Arts Council England to develop a project that would address the issue of under-representation of black and minority ethnic groups within the publishing industry. The Publishing Game is intended to remove cultural barriers and  showcase publishing as a possible future career option for young people from diverse backgrounds. To provide practical, hands-on projects that explore the creativity at the heart of the industry, Eastside has developed two distinct projects, which include a magazine project in partnership with the National Magazine Group (NatMags) and the London College of Communication (LCC), and a book publishing project in partnership with Penguin Books. The objective is for the students to go through the entire process of publishing their own magazine / book from beginning to end, which gives them a real insight into the variety of roles within the industry. The magazine project offers workshops on editorial, features, commissioning, art design, desktop publishing, budgeting, advertising and sales and marketing. Students will experience writing features, interviews and vox-pops, as well as organising photo shoots and selling advertising to local businesses. Students also have the opportunity to spend a day on-site at the NatMag's offices in central London and to visit LCC to see their magazine printed. The book publishing project begins with an overview of the industry, a brief history of Penguin Books and a trip to Bookmarque House to observe books being printed and bound. This is followed by a commissioning and acquisitions talk, a legal and negotiation workshop with literary agents and sessions on  sales, marketing and publicity which illustrate different methods used to market and sell books to a variety of target groups. The students write and edit the content, design the front cover and publish their books. The Publishing Game challenges students to allocate roles according to individual abilities and interests, develops skills in autonomy and keeping to deadline, and widens their horizons while increasing the scope of their ambitions.  .            

The West End Summer School, is aimed at gifted and talented students and those on the 14-19 Creative and Media Diploma and is run in partnership with the Society of London Theatre (SOLT). It is designed to give young people an insight into the world of professional theatre with direct access to some of the West End's top shows and productions. The West End Summer School also offers an in-depth exploration of the creative industries and an amazing opportunity to perform on stage, alongside some of the very best actors and dancers in the business. Mornings are spent working intensively with a director and each afternoon involves a visit to a different West End theatre to work with the cast and crew members from some of the West End's most prestigious and popular shows. Previous masterclasses have included dance choreography with the company from Chicago at the Adelphi Theatre (pictured), singing and movement workshops with the casts from Cats at the New London Theatre, Buddy at the Strand Theatre, a Shakespeare workshop at the Globe Theatre and a rap, rhythm and articulation workshop with the cast of the Reduced Shakespeare Company at the Criterion Theatre, a directing workshop with the resident director of Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre and the director of The King and I at the London Palladium, physical theatre and mask work with the choreographer and the stage manager of The Lion King at the Lyceum Theatre and a technical theatre workshop and a backstage tour of the set of Les Miserables at the Palace Theatre. Students have also participated in a marketing workshop with Dewynters, where they learnt about advertising campaigns, poster design and how marketing can contribute to the success of long-running productions and can overcome the challenges of ever-changing cast members. At the end of the project, the students perform in a showcase that incorporates extracts and musical numbers inspired by many of the shows studied and visited throughout the two-week summer school.

Eastside was commissioned by A New Direction (AND) to deliver three distinct projects as part of the Creative Partnerships - Change School Programme in London. Eastside worked with three schools serving the needs of different age groups. In North West London we worked with Oakington Manor Primary School in applying maths and science skills in the construction of Tudor Boats with Year 4 pupils (pictured). Participants experimented with materials that would float and used their knowledge of measurements and geometry to create scale models of Tudor boats. Reception students contributed to making a large scale board game through which they could learn more about animals and the environment. In North London we worked at South Harringay Infant School in delivering A Change is Gonna Come, which involved the whole school community and explored how the pupil voice can be developed with younger children. A Change is Gonna Come explored voice, music, movement and dance where children made musical instruments, animated puppets and learnt simple dance steps. The project was framed with professional development for the teachers involved, focussing on embedding the work and gaining a more profound exploration of the links between creativity and change. In East London, we worked at Langdon Park Secondary School on Word and Vision, exploring the role of creativity in learning with Year 7 students and their teachers. Word and Vision involved 180 students from Year 7 working with a spoken word artist on an integrated humanities curriculum, exploring the local geography. All of the students took part in visual arts and spoken word workshops, in which they wrote a creative vision for their class and created a large scale art installation which reflected the topics explored. By pairing the complementary skills of creative practitioners and teachers, we were able to liberate the creativity of everyone involved in these projects so that fresh and engaging approaches to teaching and learning were developed through a collaborative process.

Eastside launched From Page to Stage in 1998 to celebrate the UK's first National Year of Reading and to support the introduction of the National Literacy Strategy. From Page to Stage aims to encourage and promote reading more widely, especially amongst boys. The project was inspired by the belief that a multi-faceted approach to books and stories makes reading more appealing to reluctant readers and increases participants' motivation for independent learning. The project comprises of a series of week-long literacy based drama workshops, that guide children through an exploration of carefully selected stories, challenging them to put on a short show in under a week, inspired by the books they discovered and read at the start of the project. From Page to Stage uses drama as a tool to open young minds and free students' imagination by placing the emphasis firmly on fun.  The project progresses through a series of well structured games and exercises, building in excitement over the week and culminating in a final performance. Literary genres explored to date include classic children's stories, folk tales and fairy tales, performance poetry and news and current affairs. From Page to Stage includes a free book distribution, where participants can select two new books and begin to build up their own library at home. This is an important part of the project, designed to enable children to continue reading at home, in their own free time and for pleasure. Eastside also arranges for authors and poets to visit the workshops, and previous writers have included David Wood, Nina Bawden, Lynne Reid Banks, Jan Blake and Jeremy Strong. In 2008, From Page to Stage celebrated its tenth anniversary, which coincided with the launch of the UK's second National Year of Reading campaign. Eastside also runs a number of other reading projects which include a Dad's Club, aimed at fathers and their children, a Tiny Book Club (for the under five's) and Turn the Page our popular teenage reading group.  

ArtWorks was commissioned by The Prince's Foundation for Children and the Arts (formerly Arts & Kids) to develop a project that would help children to experience the arts in a high quality way and to link the worlds of business, arts, children and education. Eastside, in partnership with The Cartoon Network - home to some of the funniest and most exciting new cartoons - devised and created ArtWorks, a project designed to enable children to make live action cartoons on stage, which could then be filmed and turned into screen cartoons. Cartoons are ideal for freeing young people's imaginations as the slapstick humour effortlessly engages children with its larger than life physicality. The participants studied and researched cartoons from The Cartoon Network library to learn movement and physical traits and then went on to create their own original cartoon characters and bring them to life using physical theatre techniques. Eastside's physical theatre practitioners, including globally renowned Marcello Magni from Theatre de Complicite, helped the participants to observe and reproduce a variety of walks, movements and moments of interaction through live performance. Past participants also had the opportunity to deepen their understanding of narrative by storyboarding their cartoons before they were performed and filmed live on stage at the Broadway Theatre in Lewisham. The children also learnt about editing and were able to create their own cartoon-style sound effects, which were added on to the final film during a post production workshop held in The Cartoon Network's London edit suite. Eastside and The Cartoon Network were joint recipients of the 2005 Prince of Wales Arts & Kids Foundation Award presented by His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, for the ArtWorks project.

ArtWorks - Film recording of live cartoons

The Arts Award is available throughout England and is a nationally recognised and accredited qualification at three levels - Bronze, Silver and Gold. Eastside was London’s first and only regional agency for the Arts Award in London from 2005 (when the award was launched nationally) until 2007 after which the Arts Award in London has been supported centrally by Arts Council England. During the first two years of the award, Eastside trained hundreds of London's first Arts Award advisers, ran networking events for the award and developed ways to raise the profile of the first national qualification to support young people to develop as artists and arts leaders.Eastside officially launched the Arts Award in London at CreativiTEA a discussion about creativity over afternoon tea at Claridge’s Ballroom attended by David Lammy MP (Minister for Culture 2005 - 2007) with tables hosted by artists and celebrities including Eastside patrons: Katie Derham, Richard E Grant, Soweto Kinch and Denys Baptiste as well as Sir Christopher Frayling, Siobhan Davies, Lyn Gardner, Jermey Irons, Prunella Scales and Martine McCutcheon. During our period as London’s regional agency, Eastside was proud to meet all our targets and to showcase the talents of young Londoners who had achieved their Bronze and Silver Arts Awards at a London-wide celebration event. Over 100 young people contributed to the regional celebration and guests were able to view an exhibition showcasing young people’s fashion, photography and multi-media artwork at The Nunnery at Bow Arts Trust and enjoy entertainment in the courtyard from East London Dance and Project Phakama as well as live music provided by Thames Rocks. The Arts Award regional co-ordinator is now based at the Arts Council in London and Eastside is an Arts Award Centre offering young people the opportunity to gain their Arts Awards and achieve recognition for their artistic endeavours. Eastside offer young people the opportunity to gain their Arts Awards on a number of different projects which include Cultural Ambassadors, InterAct and HIAA. Eastside is also an Arts Award Welcome Centre.

 

Arts Award - photos 

Arts Award website