East of England: Eastern Rising
Eastern Rising, our programme for the East of England, is made up of two project strands which are inspired by the Olympic and Paralympic Games; Team East for Skills and the East of England Regional Events Fund.
East of England Regional Events Fund
The objective of the Regional Events Fund is to enhance and develop a portfolio of regionally significant major events, which will form part of the celebrations in the approach to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. This investment will boost the capacity and profile of the region’s cultural and sporting offer, and where possible activities will also provide volunteering opportunities for participants from Team East for Skills.
Legacy Trust UK funding has been allocated to a wide range of sporting and cultural partners, detailed below, who will be delivering a portfolio of events in the run up to the 2012 Games.
Cambridge Film Trust's Screen Team
The Screen Team is a three year events and training initiative managed by the Cambridge Film Trust, the charity behind the world-renowned Cambridge Film Festival. The Screen Team is an innovative project, a first for any film festival in the UK, which enabled the Trust to share decades of experience in the delivery and marketing of high-profile film events with other organisations in the Eastern region.
During the summer of 2011, Cambridge Film Festival and 15 recruits to the Screen Team presented spectacular cinema events at various locations, including Movies on the Meadows and in town in Cambridge, two nights of outdoor screenings under the stars and amongst the trees at Rendlesham Forest, and beside the rapids at the London 2012 White Water Centre in Hertfordshire. Details of the 2012 programme coming soon! See their website for more information.
Image: Ignacio Crespo © 2011
Carnival Crossroads
Carnival Crossroads finished its’ 2011 tour of East of England in August at the Southend Carnival, where this innovative project won two awards including first prize for the Best Pedestrian Entry and the award for the best entry that is not sponsored in the Non-Trading category. Carnival Crossroads has been on an amazing journey since its’ inception which has taken in five outdoor events over the summer. These have included Luton International Carnival, the Strawberry Festival in Cambridge and Ip Art Festival in Ipswich. Carnival Crossroads also came first in the Best Float Award at The Lord Mayor’s Parade in Norwich.
Carnival Crossroads has engaged a diverse range of artists to work with hundreds of young people from across the region to learn and develop their creative skills in carnival and the opportunity to perform to thousands of people at some of the biggest outdoor events across the East of England.
This work has set the foundation for Carnival Crossroads to go on to becoming one of the major events taking place at London 2012 Festival.
Carnival Crossroads has a new and exciting artistic theme “East Bound” and is all about communities coming together to create a showcase of their local history, celebrating local pride and telling their story through carnival and carnival arts. Hubs of activity in each town will tell the tale of their towns, reflecting different historical, geographical and cultural features of this rich and diverse part of the country.
Participants will be time travellers in an epic show that takes the audience on a journey all the way from the Iron Age to the new and futuristic development of Silicon Fen. Each local story will be developed and designed by local carnival artists, working alongside 5 of the UK’s best national lead designers and Brazilian float designers.
You can learn more about Carnival Crossroads at www.carnivalcrossroads.org.uk
Norfolk & Norwich Festival
Supported by a programme of in-depth engagement and participation, NNF Live, the renowned Norfolk & Norwich Festival will present an extraordinary outdoor project of international significance in 2012.
Norfolk & Norwich Festival’s landmark contribution to the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival is a major collaboration with the visionary director and artist Robert Wilson. Together with Dutch visual artist Theun Mosk and theatremaker Boukje Schweigman, Wilson will combine sculpture, installations and the sweeping scenery of the North Norfolk coast to create a unique artistic experience that explores and redefines our relationship with the landscape.
This ambitious participatory event will redefine a stunning three-mile swathe of the coastline with a series of visual and sound installations that provide a thought-provoking contrast with the landscape.
Audience members walk individually at a deliberately slow pace moderated by guides, allowing them to encounter and react to the variety of sculptural forms and spaces that intersperse the route on their own terms. As they do so, participants slip into the role of the performer, nature becoming their stage.
The route has been carefully chosen to include a variety of land forms and environments, juxtaposing dune and woodland, hill and valley, meadow and beach. The installations are fixed points that punctuate the walk, sometimes channelling the walker’s vision to reveal the unexpected, sometimes providing a telling focus or contrast with the panorama, but always encouraging us to question and reflect upon our relationship with the landscape and the environment.
The project’s engagement arm, delivered in partnership with Future Projects, will work with young people in Norwich and Norfolk building on the existing NNF Live programme and establishing new ways to channel and encourage young people’s voice and engagement with culture and the arts through digital reporting on the annual festival in May and Walking in August.
Aldeburgh Music
With investment from Legacy Trust UK Aldeburgh Music will be able to connect their plans for the Aldeburgh World Orchestra (AWO) to their local education and outreach activity, extending experiences and opportunities to local young people who will be drawn from a broad range of Suffolk based groups raising ambition and celebrating talent on a local to international level.
AWO members will be invited to record and submit digital audio and visual files that reflect their lives in some way, whilst the five Suffolk based groups will use this material to create new compositions. Groups will be facilitated, tutored and supported by a team of composers, artists, technologists and sound designers. The project will culminate in an interactive installation, live performances and a virtual online element in 2012.
Through collaborative working and the exchange of global musical conversations, new works will be created for performance at high profile events in July as part of the London 2012 Festival. Take a look at the website for more details www.aldeburgh.co.uk/bpp/awo.
The British Gas Great East Swim
The third Great East Swim was hosted in the region earlier this year in June by Suffolk County Council and their partners at Alton Water. The event included new distances of ½ a mile and two miles alongside the 1 mile course. This event saw over 1800 swimmers of all abilities, from novices to the elite, take to the water. The event was watched by 12,000 spectators and will also be broadcast by Channel 4.
The Tour of Britain
The Tour of Britain, the UK's biggest professional cycle race and a centre-piece of the British sporting calendar, came to the region once again in September. Communities in Suffolk and Norfolk received the race, which began in Bury St Edmunds and finished several hours later in the North of the region in Sandringham. Support from Legacy Trust UK enabled an outreach and engagement programme in Norfolk in the run up to the event throughout the summer months, as well as community celebrations in villages and towns across Suffolk on race day itself, promoting the benefits of healthy lifestyles and cycling, with activities designed to increase participation and an inspired audience for the professional events.
Team East for Skills
This is a £2 million programme funded by Legacy Trust UK and the European Social Fund. It aims to use the 2012 Games to inspire people to improve their skills, take part in volunteering activity and progress into employment or further training.
Team East for Skills aims to: increase employment opportunities; develop a skilled and adaptable workforce; promote the Olympic and Paralympic ideals of celebrating mind, body and spirit; develop a joined up approach across sport, physical activity, culture, heritage and education and volunteering infrastructure. The programme will leave a lasting legacy of improved skills and personal development for participants across the region.
The programme supports the aspirations of London 2012 by increasing participation in sporting and cultural activities and will leave a legacy of trained and talented volunteers. Delivered by a consortium of arts, sports and voluntary organisations, Team East for Skills offers training, mentoring, volunteering placements and recognised qualifications to anyone who is unemployed.
The lead organisations Creative Arts East, Momentum Arts and Zinc Arts (formerly known as Theatre Resource) are successfully achieving ambitious targets across the whole region, supporting a wide range of participants through a bespoke approach to delivery of the warm up, bronze and silver courses to achieve maximum results for participants. Closing soon the programme will have supported 1,500 individuals to find a pathway to training, education, employment and volunteering. Highlights will be posted soon. Visit the website, www.teameast.org , for further details, new case studies and film clips.
