News Archive

[Escape Artists]

Village Underground is an evolving project building an international platform for creativity and culture. Physical bases and virtual networks will link artists, designers, filmmakers, VJ's, musicians and all other cultural practitioners across European cities and beyond. Village Underground is a stage facilitating a vibrant and diverse cross-section of creative endeavour, cultural hybrid and artistic collaboration.
Village Underground London is the first in a string of such bases; a new cultural space located in Shoreditch. An amalgamation of two intrinsic elements – a collection of ex London Underground tube train carriages recycled to form creative studios, coupled with the expansive raw space of a restored Victorian warehouse which can be transformed into a flexible and multi-functional arena for a wide range of creative activity.

The project hosts a mixed-discipline community of organisations, businesses and practices; both those working permanently from on-site spaces, as well as those affiliated through a wider network of creative working, playing and collaborating within the project's facilities. More...

Streetwise wins RPS Music Award

On 12 May 2009 at the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Awards Streetwise Opera was presented with the Audience Development Award which is in partnership with Classic FM. The Award is in recognition of Streetwise Opera’s latest production My Secret Heart which is enjoying a world tour and will be seen by an estimated 80-100,000 people worldwide.

Streetwise Opera uses music as a tool to help homeless people move forward in their lives through a weekly music programme running in 11 homeless centres around the UK and an annual production that involves top professionals working with Streetwise performers. More...

El Sistema Fellows Program is Launched
A visionary global movement that transforms the lives of children through music. A new model for social change. 33 years ago in a parking garage in Caracas, Dr. José Antonio Abreu gathered together 11 children to play music. El Sistema was born. It now teaches music to 300,000 of Venezuela’s poorest children, demonstrating the power of ensemble music to dramatically change the life trajectory of hundreds of thousands of a nation’s youth while transforming the communities around them. el Sistema USA is a support and advocacy network for people and organizations inspired by Venezuela’s monumental music education program. It will grow to provide comprehensive information on the El Sistema philosophy and methodology, and host a variety of resources that will aid those building, expanding and supporting El Sistema programs in the US and beyond. Debuting the Abreu Fellows Program The Abreu Fellows Program at New England Conservatory provides tuition-free instruction and a living stipend for 15 to 20 outstanding young postgraduate musicians, “passionate for their art and for social justice,” who seek to guide the development of El Sistema programs in the U.S. and beyond. The curriculum provides the Abreu Fellows with in-depth knowledge of the mission and musical methodology of the El Sistema vision, in addition to practical skills in leadership, communication, cultural understanding, behavioral management, organizational development, fundraising and working with underserved and at-risk youth and communities. In addition, Fellows’ skills as “teaching artists” will be developed through study, observation and coaching. Find out more... Brazilian theater director Augusto Boal dies

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Augusto Boal, the Brazilian theater director and playwright known for the interactive genre called the "Theater of the Oppressed," died Saturday (May 2). He was 78.

Boal died of respiratory failure following a long battle with leukemia, according to Elisa Nunes, a spokeswoman for Rio's Hospital Samaritano.

Boal, who studied theater arts at New York City's Columbia University, created Theater of the Oppressed in the early 1960s as a way to establish a dialogue between audience, playwright, director and actors that encouraged political activism.

Seen as a threat to the dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985, Boal was arrested, jailed and tortured before being exiled to Argentina.

He returned to Brazil after the fall of the military regime.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Condolence Page

World Theatre Day - International Message
27th March 2009

...When we look beyond appearances, we see oppressors and oppressed people, in all societies, ethnic groups, genders, social classes and casts; we see an unfair and cruel world. We have to create another world because we know it is possible. But it is up to us to build this other world with our hands and by acting on the stage and in our own life.

Participate in the “spectacle” which is about to begin and once you are back home, with your friends act your own plays and look at what you were never able to see: that which is obvious. Theatre is not just an event; it is a way of life!

We are all actors: being a citizen is not living in society, it is changing it.

Augusto Boal

Read the full text at World Theatre Day Blog

Madness & Modernity: Mental illness and the visual arts in Vienna 1900

The Wellcome Collection
London - 1 April-28 June 2009

Vienna at the turn of the 20th century was one of Europe's leading centres for modernism. This was a tumultuous period of transition in which the arts, literature, architecture and philosophy blossomed. A time when Sigmund Freud, among others, pioneered new ideas about the self and psychiatry.

Vienna in 1900 was a city obsessed with the mind. Political unrest had left the Viennese with an overwhelming sense that they were living in 'nervous times'. Anxieties about mental health were allied to fears about the modern city; this context helped to foster progress in psychiatric care and innovation.

This multidisciplinary exhibition presents the range of ways madness and art interacted in Vienna, from designs for utopian psychiatric spaces to the drawings of patients confined in them. It explores the influence of psychiatry on early modernism and encourages us to reflect on how we deal with mental illness 100 years on.

More details on the exhibition website

Jonathan Harris: The Web's secret stories
Brooklyn-based artist Jonathan Harris' work celebrates the world's diversity even as it illustrates the universal concerns of its occupants. His computer programs scour the Internet for unfiltered content, which his beautiful interfaces then organize to create coherence from the chaos. His projects are both intensely personal (the "We Feel Fine" project, made with Sep Kanvar, which scans the world's blogs to collect snapshots of the writers' feelings) and entirely global (the new "Universe," which turns current events into constellations of words). But their effect is the same -- to show off a world that resonates with shared emotions, concerns, problems, triumphs and troubles. "Jonathan Harris [is] a New York artist and storyteller working primarily on the Internet. His work involves the exploration and understanding of humans, on a global scale, through the artifacts they leave behind on the Web." Edge.org
International Community Arts Gathering Peter Keelan, a practicing community artist for over 25 years, is writing a blueprint towards holding an International Community Arts Gathering. The focus will be to nurture all those involved in community arts; to ignite the 'possibilities and potential' within the practice of community arts. Peter would like to know how YOU would envisage this happening - think about the questions below: 1. Who would be a workshop leader, either from Australia or internationally, who we would just have to have on the program? (mine is Tim Smit from the Eden Project in England) 2. What would you like such a gathering to do, achieve?
3. A "left field! creative idea for such a gathering?
4. Comment of any description?

It will be great to gain your input, as this will help create the framework, to bring this event to fruition. Tell us what you think! and send your response to Peter - his contact details are as follows:
Peter Keelan, PO Box 884, Denmark WA 6333, Ph: 08 9840 9674, Mobile: [phone], Email: [e-mail]. Website: http://www.canwa.com.au/news/82/

SANe Training Fair

We are thinking of holding a Training Fair in London. This would be an opportunity for members of SANe to meet one another and to talk to organisations that provide specialist training for people who wish to work in the field of socially inclusive arts.

A short questionnaire has been created - view it here - please do respond so that we can gauge the level of interest. We realise that a lot of SANe members probably won't be able to attend, given the vast geographical spread of the SANe membership, but, if this works, then maybe other members could arrange meetings in their own locations. Practitioner training has been chosen as the theme of the first SANe get-together, but suggestions for themes of future meetings are very welcome.

Featured Members: New members who add a picture of themselves or a company logo are featured (left), as are existing members when their profiles are updated. And if you put you're photos into an album, then we can feature it below.

Developing Digitally
AmbITion is a change programme for the arts and cultural sector – helping organisations achieve their 21st century sustainability ambitions through implementing integrated IT and digital developments, for more information visit their website : http://www.getambition.com/ Artwork by Pons Tello
Find more photos like this on Social Arts Network Pons Tello's Page on SANe