Curious Minds

Creative Futures Welcomes Arts Award at The Brewery

The Brewery Arts Centre and Creative Futures Cumbria presented a joint launch on Tuesday 15^th February to celebrate and promote Arts Award in Cumbria. Creative Futures Cumbria promotes Arts Award in Cumbria and trains the Arts Award Advisers who work with young people.

The Brewery Arts Centre is now an ‘Arts Awards Welcome' Organisation and the event showcased what is on offer through ‘Brewery Youth Arts’ and other organisations running Arts Award in South Lakeland.

The event aimed to cater for all Arts Award users; including secondary, primary, special and independent schools,  youth groups, artists and of course young people.  The event mixed  information, celebration and inspiration about Arts Award and presented it in an exciting showcase of performance, speeches and networking opportunities.

Following introductory speeches from representatives from the Brewery, Creative Futures Cumbria and from the Arts Award National Team, attendees were treated to some fantastic performances by young people which really showcased the diversity and quality of Arts Award in action.

The event kicked off with a screening of a film and presentation by three students at Dallam School who have achieved their Gold Arts Award through their school's Arts Award Club. Three young men, with three different interests (acting, film-making and script-writing)  pulled off the ultimate collaboration and created a 30 minute film and  trailer, which was showcased in their school to rapturous reviews. These enthusiastic  students spoke articulately and confidently about their Arts Award experiences; about their enjoyment of the process,  how it had helped them to develop as young artists in their particular specialism and how much they recommended Arts Award to other young people.

There were some captivating energetic and imaginative performances from two of the Brewery Youth Dance groups. Firstly a  haunting and evocative, eclectic piece of dance theatre entitled 'Trapped' combining both live and filmed performance from the Brewery Youth Dance group. The 'Boyz Moves' group then took the floor to showcase their dark and edgy piece Cirque de Nuit demonstrating skilled  partner and group dance work...including the group forming a human staircase for one dancer to climb!

Next the attendees were treated to a film showcasing  a collection of diverse work from  Art Locates Me, a digital arts project for young people in Cumbria run by Connexions Cumbria. Finally a group of young people from South Lakeland Young Carers shared their experiences of doing Arts Award through a collaborative project at the Brewery Arts Centre focusing on Asian Arts. The young participants spoke confidently are articulately about what they had got out of the project and in particular how doing their Arts Awards had helped them to not only develop their arts skills, but also their  confidence, communication and social skills.

The event culminated in a unique Q&A session...with fun balloon passing round the auditorium to music  before popping the balloons to reveal the questions for the panel to discuss.

 It was a fantastic event, which truly showcased the diversity and quality of Arts Award activity in the South Lakes and demonstrated how through collaboration and partnership, we can truly celebrate and promote the value and impact of Arts Award and increase opportunities for young people  to grow, develop and achieve through Arts Award.

The event was supported by Cumbria County Council through ‘See it Do it’, Creative Futures Cumbria and ourselves, Curious Minds.