CBD Outdoor Arts Season 2015
Background Info for Production Manager
CBD aims to deliver an outstanding outdoor arts programme in summer 2015
that is locally led and rooted, reaches the widest possible audience and leaves a
legacy of benefits for local people.
All events are taking place as part of LBBD’s 50th anniversary celebrations of the
borough’s creation.
AIMS
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•
•
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Supporting community cohesion in Barking and Dagenham through
providing fun events in community spaces where people can meet and
socialise
Enabling local residents to develop skills and experience in events
production, curation and marketing
Creating more opportunities for local people to see & do new things in
summer 2015 - surprising people with great arts experiences
Developing and building local partnerships
WHEN AND WHERE
1. July 11th - Old Dagenham Village festival
2. July 25th - The Colour of Time by Artonik @ Parsloes Park as the finale to
the One Borough Festival *
3. August 1st & 2nd - ‘Open House’ by No Fit State Circus in Barking Riverside
outside the Rivergate Centre
*This event is being covered through a separate production manager contract
BACKGROUND
One of the most effective ways we’ve been able to reach new audiences in year 1
of the CBD programme has been through visible on-street arts activities; for
example our artist stall on Barking market, empty shop project on Scrattons Farm
and mural painting in Valence. What has been working are activities that spark
curiosity, don't ask people to immediately "join the project" and can be stand
alone at first. So for year two of the programme we want to do more of what
works.
In summer 2014 we started to explore the idea of programming our own outdoor
arts events led by Cultural Connectors (local residents who make decisions about
what happens on our project) to take place in summer 2015. Maggie Clarke from
Xtrax was brought on board as an adviser for this new strand of work as Xtrax
have a huge amount of experience and contacts in the field of outdoor arts.
We and Cultural Connectors started our research and planning process by going
to see lots of outdoor arts work in the Watch this Space festival in Waterloo in Aug
2014 and in the Out There festival in Great Yarmouth in Sep 2014.
CCs then led Maggie from Xtrax on a half-day site-visit tour around the borough to
explore possible sites for outdoor arts shows. We were looking for spaces with
relatively high footfall and were interested in areas which hadn’t previously
hosted arts events in order to test new sites for arts activities in the borough and
reach new local audiences. Dagenham Village was the most popular site from this
site visit as it’s in a residential area, very visible (unlike some of the more hidden
park spaces we looked at) and in Dagenham which traditionally has received less
arts investment than Barking.
At the end of September and again in October 2014, Cultural Connectors (CCs)
met with Maggie to talk about their experiences of outdoors arts shows over the
summer and to discuss the type of work they would like to programme in B&D.
Maggie made some suggestions of shows she thought CCs might like based on
discussions so far and CCs selected others directly based on what they’d seen
and liked at festivals over the summer.
We had our first festival steering group on 20th Jan - chaired by Cultural Connector
Khushnood Ahmed - where we looked in more detail at the site and what could
happen where with the help of Bradley Hemmings from Greenwich and Docklands
International Festival.
We now have a shortlist of outdoor arts shows selected by CCs which have been
provisionally booked to take place on July 11th at Dagenham Village, we’ve
booked The Colour of Time by Artonik to take place as the finale of the Council’s
One Borough festival in Parsloes Park on 25th July and we’ve booked No Fit State
to bring ‘Open House’ to Barking Riverside on 1st and 2nd August . We have tech
riders for all the acts and plan to contract all in March.
A steering group of local residents, partners and Cultural Connectors meets
monthly to oversee all aspects of the festival programme.
ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
1. Old Dagenham Village Festival – July 11th
The festival site is a series of 5 green spaces and 1 paved space around the area
of Dagenham Parish church, on the last remaining picturesque street of what
used to be Dagenham village. See attached site plan and the following
website: http://www.dagenhamparishchurch.org/ From the 1930s the area
became swallowed up by factories, new housing and main roads. Locals
remember that there used to be outdoor harvest festivals around the church in
the 1920s but no-one has put on any outdoor arts festivals there since then…
until now!
Provisional line up

Max Calaf – Any Day - http://www.maxcalaf.com/page30.htm

Lords of Strut (http://www.lordsofstrut.com/show/street-show),

Dizzy O Dare, Wonder World of Mr E
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hQGP9dU87U&feature=player_embe
dded),

Festijeux wooden games (France) (http://www.festijeux.com/)

Creature Feature - Gorillas
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE1xAKD_bBw&feature=player_embe
dded)

Cocoloco (http://www.cocoloco.co.uk/) Will work with a group of 10 local
people to help them develop their own walkabout street theatre show to
perform at festivals over the summer

The Polishers - Happy Urban Chaos (Joyeause Pagaile Urbain - France)
http://www.vernisseurs.fr/spectacles/article/joyeuse-pagaille-urbaine

Bringing local artists, schools and communities together with Emergency
Exit Arts - http://www.eea.org.uk/ - to develop visual arts project and
designs for dressing the festival site/ creative signposting

Fair play dodgy boys http://www.foolsparadise.co.uk/companies/fairplay/dodgyboys/

Balloonatic from Fools Paradise http://www.foolsparadise.co.uk/companies/balloonatic/balloonatic/

Performances from local dancers and groups in church car park (will have
suitable flooring put down during the fest)

Galloping cuckoos – Driftwood - http://thegallopingcuckoos.com/

Lost in Translation – Le Ballade de Bergerac - http://www.litcircus.com/
2. August 1st & 2nd – Open House by No Fit State Circus in Barking Riverside
outside the Rivergate Centre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJN44ari4qU
A daytime happening based on and around a group of 2- 4 caravans or vehicles,
modified for high skill aerial and acrobatic circus. A company of 16 performers +
live musicians explode from their caravan homes for 2 x 2 hour Open House
programmes of public taster workshops, training sessions, impromptu stunts and
professional circus performances,with music by the Nofit State band. The
audience are invited to run away with the circus for a few hours, participate in a
range of taster circus skills workshops – including, throughout the day, tightwire,
trapeze, aerial hoop, hula hoop, object manipulation, handstands and acrobatics,
- train alongside Nofit State’s professional performers and/or sit back and watch
as the spectacle unfolds. The proceedings are hosted by an MC. No Fit State are
also contributing £5000 towards community engagement activities in the lead up
to the show.
About the site: The Rivergate Centre serves 1700 new homes in Barking
Riverside. It has a great outdoor piazza type space and decking overlooking a
river. The area will eventually have 10,800 homes and will later down the line
have a new train station serving the area and more shops and local
conveniences. Right now it's a bit inconvenient for people living there as there's
not much to do... no shops, poor transport links and a huge desire for more
activities and events to bring the community together.