A total of £29,999.99 was awarded to 12 projects in the 2023 Arts Grants round, assessed and recommended by the Resident Assessment Panel.
Select the title of the project to learn more about it.
- Arunima Kumar Dance Company CIC, ‘Myths & Legends’
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An immersive, inclusive intergenerational South Asian dance and story-telling community performance involving over 40 artists from the age of 4 years upwards, primarily from BAME communities. The project will involve 10 training sessions and workshops. Collaboration with partners such as Open Age, Age UK and Chelsea Theatre will help to identify mythical stories from the community.
Arunima Kumar Dance Company is one of the largest Inclusive Inter-generational South Asian dance organisations in the borough with a vision to promote the creativity within South Asian culture across all ages, abilities, and backgrounds.
- Phoenix Art's London CIC, ‘Jamaican Independence Day 6th August 2023’
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A celebration of Jamaican Independence Day taking place for the first time in Portobello, Notting Hill. The heritage event taking place on Sunday 6th of August in Portobello Green Park aims to welcome and engage the local community with music, dance, food, performances and educational workshops exploring the history of Jamaica and its connection to the borough today.
Phoenix Art's London CIC is a newly set up company with aims to empower local people and create social impact to inspire and build stronger community through Art, music and heritage.
- Refuge Media Productions CIC, ‘Trojans UK 23’
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The project will consist of two months of weekly drama workshops for refugees in Chelsea Theatre. Participants will be sourced from across the borough. The project will include working with K&C Festival to develop a new adaptation of ‘Trojan Women’ themed around participants' stories. This will be the second leg of a projected two-year community theatre tour, building on last year's successful Trojans UK 22 project with Playground Theatre.
Through the Trojans project, Refuge Media Productions CIC produces psycho-social support and strategic communications drama projects for refugees, to help participants overcome depression, isolation and trauma and give them a platform to tell their stories to the world.
- Element Creatives, ‘Element Creative Projects’
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This project aims to engage care-experienced, asylum-seeking young people to engage in two creative art projects. The projects will explore notions of identity and community through the realms of visual art, performance and creative writing. Facilitators will encourage participants to explore various dimensions of their lives and experiences.
Element Creatives supports care-experienced young people, refugees, migrants and at-risk young people to increase their self-confidence, learn new creative skills and expand their networks and friendships through creative projects exploring the notions of culture, community and identity.
- Royal College of Music (RCM), ‘Get, Set, Play’
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In partnership with Rugby Portobello Trust and the Tri-borough Music hub, Get, Set, Play is a free family programme of music sessions for families from hard-to-reach groups and disadvantaged back grounds living locally in Kensington and Chelsea. The project includes a 6-week series of adaptable free music sessions for up to 60 participants, including children between 6–8 years old and their families each Saturday culminating in a concert at the RCM. The aim is to build relationships with families in familiar, local settings and create pathways for participants to continue their musical education after graduating from the programme.
The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a world-leading conservatoire, providing specialised music education to students from all backgrounds and cultures. They equip students with the skills to contribute significantly to musical life in the UK and internationally, to work as professional musicians in their field of choice, whilst nurturing pioneering research and innovation.
Visit The Royal College of Music website.
The Rugby Portobello Trust is a children's, youth and family support charity that has been supporting the local community for over 135 years. They provide a range of activities to help participants to build confidence, expand their horizons and realise their potential.
- The Clement James Centre, ‘Carnival Arts Programme’
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A series of creative workshops during the summer holidays exploring the history and heritage of Notting Hill Carnival in partnership with a local artist. Through dance and music workshops young people will learn about the music associated with the carnival and create their own `Carnival Song' to be performed at the carnival itself. Participants will also get the chance to work as a team to design, create and paint a banner to be displayed on The Clement James Centre bus which will follow them during the carnival parade.
The Clement James Centre is an award-winning community centre which has been supporting the North Kensington community for over 40 years providing education, employment support, adult learning and wellbeing activities.
- Come for Gold Ltd, ‘Going for Gold’
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Going for Gold is a play exploring the true story of Frankie Lucas a middleweight boxer in 1970's London. Audiences will get to relive Frankie's journey from St Vincent to London at the age of nine, through to his amateur and professional boxing career, narrated by the mother of his child, Gene. As an amateur, Frankie won the ABA title in 1972 and 1973 but was overlooked for both the '72 Munich Olympics and the '74 Commonwealth Games. Determined to compete Frankie goes as the sole representative of St Vincent and wins Gold At 21, he turns pro, ready to take on the world but at 26, Frankie exits the boxing world in an ambulance, alone and sectioned. The play examines who and what we hang onto when all around us falls.
Come for Gold Ltd is a new company set up to produce and deliver Going for Gold the play.
- Pursuing Independent Paths (PiP), ‘PiP Arts: Christmas Panto - created by Adults with Learning Disabilities’
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Participants, all with varying learning needs, will start creating the PiP Christmas Panto in September 2023. Weekly learning sessions will consist of creative writing, cabaret, dance, and crafts. Self-advocacy sessions will also take place enabling all participants to have their chance to express their ambition, creativity and originality as they contribute to the creation of the Panto. Participants will be supported to develop the script, characters, costumes, sets and props. The Panto will take place at PiP's centre on Kensal Road.
PiP supports adults with Learning Disabilities (LD) to develop skills and competencies to reach their full potential. PiP’s highly regarded Arts programme runs weekly sessions in performing arts, music, dance, cabaret, media/digital art.
- Carnival Village Trust, ‘Steel the Show…The Youth Takeover’
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Working with the Tabernacle and taking place at Powis Square, ‘Steel the show’ is a celebration of the steelpan instrument and its contribution to North Kensington. This project will invite young people to perform five rounds of different musical genres, celebrating the 90th year since the invention of the steelpan instrument. The event is a celebration of generational continuity and preservation aiming to educate and inform audience and participants about the steelpan instrument's contribution to the borough and the world.
Carnival Village Trust is London’s development agency for carnival arts. They host strategic arts venues and work with carnival arts and community organisations and have been behind major events such as the Notting Hill carnival.
- St Cuthbert’s Centre, ‘Refettorio Felix Arts’
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A series of community afternoon art classes offered to the service users of St Cuthbert’s Centre. Some of the residents themselves have an ex-military background and experience of homelessness. The programme includes painting, printing, sculpture, collage and mixed activities. The sessions are tailored to each guest attending to ensure that they can engage in the art creation. Through these classes Refettorio Felix Arts aim to restore and respect the dignity of each individual. Participants will have the opportunity to display their art within the centre.
Refettorio Felix at St Cuthbert’s Centre supports a community of homeless, older and socially isolated guests with a free weekday 3-course restaurant-quality lunch, practical wellbeing support, and activity groups.
- Joni-Rae Carrack and CW+ Arts for All programme, ‘Pluck’
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As part of her residency, puppeteer Joni-Rae Carrack will collaborate with harpist Mark Levin (as Shadows and Strings) to create performances for paediatric patients, utilising shadow puppetry and harp music. Joni-Rae Carrack and Mark Levin will develop an interactive experience within a hospital setting, targeting 2–14 year-olds residing in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (CWH). Workshops will result in a short sensory performance exploring the themes of space, the ocean and wildlife developed to respond to patient emotional and wellbeing needs.
Joni-Rae Carrack is a puppeteer, theatre-maker and facilitator specialising in creating pieces around the theme of mental health and developing projects that aim to boost wellbeing. She is currently the Resident Artist for the CW+ (the official charity of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) Arts for All programme, which aims to provide meaningful cultural opportunities that offer distraction, engagement, and social interaction to patients at Chelsea and Westminster and West Middlesex University hospital.
- Sheila Hill and Playground Theatre, ‘The Power Project’
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The Power Project explores contemporary power using interviews collected by Sheila Hill across 25 years, with leaders in politics, science, art, AI, space exploration and climate activism to create a new theatre work. Each voice is edited into a short, poetic monologue. Each monologue will be read by a renowned actor. Three premiere performances will take place at Playground Theatre, as part of K + C Festival, including a wraparound, social engagement programme; and the creation of a parallel digital artwork/ website.
Sheila Hill is a writer and theatre maker who has lived in the Borough for over 30 years. Her works include ‘Eye to Eye’ (Brighton Festival/Glyndebourne, 2019), and ‘Him’ (Royal Festival Hall/Glasgow Tramway/Birmingham Rep/Edinburgh Traverse, 2016) Locally Sheila has produced ‘I See Your Beating Heart’ in 2001 – a site specific work about motherhood-childhood, commissioned by Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Sheila Hill has also had career as a columnist and feature-writer for the Guardian newspaper.