Just to let you all know that Leopoldsburg will be hosting a press conference about the project on March 20th.
More about this later!
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Monday, 11 February 2008
Opening doors to aspiring actors with learning disabilities
Article by Louise Ghirlando
published in the Sunday Times of Malta
Sunday 10th February 2008
St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity has obtained funding from the educational and cultural arm of the European Union, through the lifelong learning programme Grundtvig, for its project entitled ‘Opening Doors: Developing learning disabled people’s participation in the arts across Europe’.
The project is looking to develop a method of theatre practice for actors with learning disabilities. Partnered with St. James Cavalier is a Belgian arts centre, Leopoldsburg, and Headway Theatre Company from the UK. The project has multileveled aims, starting with building its foundations through the exploration and sharing of professional practice in the field. In this respect, the partnership with the UK offers a unique advantage, as Headway’s agenda is specifically that of using the performing arts as a tool for the creative expression of socially marginalized people because of disability or other disadvantages. One of the groups they host is Seven Stars, which is an established theatre group of actors with learning disabilities. Both St. James and Leopoldsburg are looking forward to gaining further insight into the methods of practice as developed by Headway to facilitate an independent process of expression and devising of drama. In the coming March, St. James will be hosting project workers from the three participating countries to a training seminar.
As part of its work, Headway has also established an annual theatre festival for actors with learning disabilities. Following a planning meeting in Brussels, the festival provided this December a perfect launching pad for the project’s work as Maltese and Belgian project workers were invited to Blyth, Northumberland, where Headway are based, in order to observe different performances devised by actors with learning disabilities from the Northern area of England. As part of Headway’s agenda to explore such performative possibilities, the team is looking forward to the possibilities offered by the Opening Doors project to open its doors to the opportunities of travelling with its Seven Stars group to share their performances in other European countries and to participate in the building of theatre exchanges where they will be able to observe and share the performances developed by Malta and Brussels through the project.
In fact, following the March training seminar, the next event programmed is an exchange of performances also to be held in Malta, in the theatre at St. James Cavalier. Thus the first year of the project is set to focus on developing practice, building the theatre groups, and devising performances, whilst the second year of the project will focus on the mobility of the theatre groups’ participants themselves as the actors will tour their newly created works to Malta, England and Belgium.
Alongside this, the project is also set on sharing its practice with a wider audience and intends to publish its working methodologies as developed throughout the duration of the project.
Thus the project, through its sharing of practice, mobility, and dissemination, fulfils the working criteria of the Grundtvig framework. More importantly, it does so through its focus on assisting people from a vulnerable social group and in a marginal social context, improving the quality and increasing the volume of cooperation in adult learning, and improving the quality and accessibility of mobility in adult education and increasing its volume.
To achieve its objectives, the Maltese partner, St. James Cavalier will be next focusing on developing a working group of actors with learning disabilities. With this aim, it will be offering a series of workshops and drama sessions leading to the September performance festival, with the aspiration that the group will eventually become an independent, permanent platform for actors with learning disabilities. The project workers look forward to collaborating with various local NGOs and support agencies for people with learning disabilities.
Adults with learning disabilities (age 18 – 65) interested in participating in Opening Doors should contact Toni Attard, St. James Cavalier EU projects coordinator at euproject@sjcav.org or 21223200.
published in the Sunday Times of Malta
Sunday 10th February 2008
St. James Cavalier Centre for Creativity has obtained funding from the educational and cultural arm of the European Union, through the lifelong learning programme Grundtvig, for its project entitled ‘Opening Doors: Developing learning disabled people’s participation in the arts across Europe’.
The project is looking to develop a method of theatre practice for actors with learning disabilities. Partnered with St. James Cavalier is a Belgian arts centre, Leopoldsburg, and Headway Theatre Company from the UK. The project has multileveled aims, starting with building its foundations through the exploration and sharing of professional practice in the field. In this respect, the partnership with the UK offers a unique advantage, as Headway’s agenda is specifically that of using the performing arts as a tool for the creative expression of socially marginalized people because of disability or other disadvantages. One of the groups they host is Seven Stars, which is an established theatre group of actors with learning disabilities. Both St. James and Leopoldsburg are looking forward to gaining further insight into the methods of practice as developed by Headway to facilitate an independent process of expression and devising of drama. In the coming March, St. James will be hosting project workers from the three participating countries to a training seminar.
As part of its work, Headway has also established an annual theatre festival for actors with learning disabilities. Following a planning meeting in Brussels, the festival provided this December a perfect launching pad for the project’s work as Maltese and Belgian project workers were invited to Blyth, Northumberland, where Headway are based, in order to observe different performances devised by actors with learning disabilities from the Northern area of England. As part of Headway’s agenda to explore such performative possibilities, the team is looking forward to the possibilities offered by the Opening Doors project to open its doors to the opportunities of travelling with its Seven Stars group to share their performances in other European countries and to participate in the building of theatre exchanges where they will be able to observe and share the performances developed by Malta and Brussels through the project.
In fact, following the March training seminar, the next event programmed is an exchange of performances also to be held in Malta, in the theatre at St. James Cavalier. Thus the first year of the project is set to focus on developing practice, building the theatre groups, and devising performances, whilst the second year of the project will focus on the mobility of the theatre groups’ participants themselves as the actors will tour their newly created works to Malta, England and Belgium.
Alongside this, the project is also set on sharing its practice with a wider audience and intends to publish its working methodologies as developed throughout the duration of the project.
Thus the project, through its sharing of practice, mobility, and dissemination, fulfils the working criteria of the Grundtvig framework. More importantly, it does so through its focus on assisting people from a vulnerable social group and in a marginal social context, improving the quality and increasing the volume of cooperation in adult learning, and improving the quality and accessibility of mobility in adult education and increasing its volume.
To achieve its objectives, the Maltese partner, St. James Cavalier will be next focusing on developing a working group of actors with learning disabilities. With this aim, it will be offering a series of workshops and drama sessions leading to the September performance festival, with the aspiration that the group will eventually become an independent, permanent platform for actors with learning disabilities. The project workers look forward to collaborating with various local NGOs and support agencies for people with learning disabilities.
Adults with learning disabilities (age 18 – 65) interested in participating in Opening Doors should contact Toni Attard, St. James Cavalier EU projects coordinator at euproject@sjcav.org or 21223200.
Thursday, 7 February 2008
And we're off!
So, Belgium's finally on route to succes!
Wisper has agreed to let Wim Oris coach our group. We definitely think Wim's the man for the job as he shares our ideas on how the project should develop. He'll start his first session with the group March 13rd. From then on the group will get together once a week.
't Brugske has also fully committed to the project now. They put the question to their learners to see who would be interested in joining the group. Everybody was very positive and in the end nine learners decided to join the project. Educator Tanja is really motivated to come and join our team and help Wim coach the group. Seeing as she works with the learners every day she'll be a valuable support for Wim as she can keep him updated on the daily progress of the individual learners.
Berkenhof - another institution - will also join the project. They have about eight interested learners which would mean we'd have a group of 17 learners all together! Berkenhof still has to decide which educator will join the project to help support Wim with the training.
It's all coming together very nicely as a very interesting project where different institutions will all team up to make it a succes!
We'll keep you posted....
Wisper has agreed to let Wim Oris coach our group. We definitely think Wim's the man for the job as he shares our ideas on how the project should develop. He'll start his first session with the group March 13rd. From then on the group will get together once a week.
't Brugske has also fully committed to the project now. They put the question to their learners to see who would be interested in joining the group. Everybody was very positive and in the end nine learners decided to join the project. Educator Tanja is really motivated to come and join our team and help Wim coach the group. Seeing as she works with the learners every day she'll be a valuable support for Wim as she can keep him updated on the daily progress of the individual learners.
Berkenhof - another institution - will also join the project. They have about eight interested learners which would mean we'd have a group of 17 learners all together! Berkenhof still has to decide which educator will join the project to help support Wim with the training.
It's all coming together very nicely as a very interesting project where different institutions will all team up to make it a succes!
We'll keep you posted....
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