For the Fallen

Community commemoration project with digital performance animation of WWI photography.

Funded: Arts Council England.

Co-Researcher from EHU: Prof Helen Newall

Grosvenor Park Heritage Project

A site-specific story telling event.

Commissioned by Russell Kirk, summer, 2016. http://www.russellkirk.co.uk/

Co-Researcher from EHU: Prof Helen Newall

Theatre in the Quarter

Dir. Matt Baker, October 2015

Funders & Sponsors: Arts Council Lottery; Cheshire West and Chester; Earl of Chester Trust; Cheshire Community Foundation; Blacon Education Village: Avenue Services http://www.chesterchronicle.co.uk/whats-on/theatre/review-best-days-lives-chester-10344480

Co-researcher from EHU: Prof Helen Newall

Cultivate

Exploring the benefit and impact of arts activities in relation to grassroots social projects, with particular focus on community farming schemes in Northwest.

Co-researchers from EHU: Dr Barnaby King and Dr Victoria Foster

Evaluating Drama-based Crime Intervention: Young People’s Affective Engagement with Performance

This project carried out with the Royal Court Liverpool Trust explored how theatre can support young people’s personal and social education and contribute to community safety objectives. The research involved a multi-method approach and included the use of participatory, arts-based methods with young people at Notre Dame Catholic Academy in Liverpool. The work was funded by Liverpool John Moores University and the Rayne Foundation and the project’s dissemination has been supported by Edge Hill University’s I4P.

Click here for more information and to access the report https://research.edgehill.ac.uk/en/publications/evaluating-drama-based-crime-prevention-young-peoples-affective-e-2

Edge Hill co-researcher  Victoria Foster

The Value of Nothing

This piece of theatre written by Dr Kim Wiltshire was about the benefits system, what living with worklessness was like, and how the creative industries in the UK are being utilized through projects to try and address issues that they simply are not equipped to deal with. This was a two and a half year project, and funding came from ACE, Lime Arts and Health as well as the Research Investment Fund and support in-kind from Bolton Octagon Theatre.

Kim worked with 31 creatives/artists to make the piece. The question for the play was: What if an artist created a community project that could end worklessness and the welfare system? The idea was to explore what it means to live on benefits but also how society views the creative industries. Kim also wanted to explore the use of audience participation, to create a sense of a real time event that was unfolding in front of the audience, as well as further explore the role of multimedia and film in live performance that she had used for Project XXX.

The theatre piece was researched for two and a half years with young people attending community projects and focus group sessions in Bolton and Manchester. She worked with over 30 young people in all, asking people to tell her about their experiences of living within the welfare system. The information gathered was used to create a narrative based on the research question and themes, and produced a 70-minute multimedia piece of theatre. The play performed 5 times across North West England and the Midlands in 2017, and published by Aurora Metro theatre. It was bought in by the TUC for their Equality Conference on 21st October 2017. Marketing for the play was run by High Rise Communications, and blog posts and articles appeared in various press outlets, including Big Issue North.