Education and Community
ReAct - Skills Funding Agency
The Skills Funding Agency project ReAct ran from March 2009-December 2010.
ReAct began with the collaboration on Urban Vani with Southank Centre, Patidar Centre and Gauri Sharma Tripathi/DJ Schlomo in March 2009 and was completed in December 2010 with a group from Mount Carmel School in Islington. Nine learners completed their learning journey with Akademi artist Shoumi Das, as part of their BTech in Performing Arts.
NEET Programme
Take 2 - Skills Funding Agency
There was one further successful programme of activity run for Take 2, in addition to the previous three cohorts. The final project took place on 15 - 17th December 2010. This project, focused on visual arts, enabled access to a new cohort of NEET individuals working towards a collective outcome. The young people at Castlehaven created art work for a large banner to be printed and displayed outside Castlehaven Youth Centre, Camden.
London Councils Projects - InterAction and Creating Moves
Inter Action
Akademi delivered nine Inter-Action (London Councils service 6) workshops and ten small scale performances from September – December 2010. We have been involved in three large scale performances at Greenwich National Maritime Museum, Brent Diwali- with Emergency Exit Arts, the Brent Events team and Ashcroft Fairfield Hall, Croydon. 3,745 older people and BAMER people benefited from Inter Action workshops at live performances.
Creating Moves
We delivered 27 workshops as part of Creating Moves (London Councils service 7) in October 2010 to December 2010; 3,596 children and young people benefited from the programme.
Much of this work fitted with our creative learning Diwali programme. Akademi artists offered participatory performance and workshops in dance, story-telling, shadow puppetry and music. Commenting on our Diwali work we received the following feedback:
“The audience were very engaged - watching the puppets and being involved in the story through the hand gestures. We now have a link with a school in India, so there could be the opportunity of further group/class work! Thank you again for the performance and being a special part of our day.” School Teacher
We have supported 12 artists across the London Councils programmes between October 2010 and December 2010.
Research Programme: Arts and Older People – ACE Project Funded Action research
Akademi has completed a DVD for the resource pack. Working in partnership with University Campus Suffolk Akademi associate artists completed the final paper. The pack includes the DVD, short report and sheets on how best to facilitate working with older people in dance and an exemplar session plan for working with older adults. The project delivery has now ended and we will submit the final report to Arts Council England, London in early spring 2011.
Big Lottery Fund – Family Learning ‘Who We Are’
Akademi delivered a storytelling project with artist David Avery, at Whitefield School in Cricklewood, Barnet. Akademi also carried out a two-day taster project at Burnt Oak library with dance and storytelling artist, Khavita Kaur, as part of a Black History Month / Family Learning week celebration and taster workshop later in October 2010.
Dance Development
Productions
Throughout September – December 2010 approximately 971 people saw Akademi performances and 230 saw work by artists supported by Akademi. 40 artists benefited from support from Akademi.
Bells – Plymouth Mela
Commencing a new relationship with the Barbican Theatre in Plymouth, Akademi presented Bells as the headline performance in the city’s inaugural Mela. The performances were then followed by a 45 minute dance workshop by Urja Thakore. Feedback from the Plymouth Barbican programming team was incredibly positive.
Daredevas – Watermans
Continuing our ongoing relationship with Watermans Arts Centre, Akademi presented a final evening of work from our 2009/10 Daredevas platform. We included work from two dancers Sooraj Subramaniam and Sri Thina Subramaniam.
Other Projects
Ekatra Retraining, Nehru Centre
To continue the presentation and development of Bells as an active component in Akademi’s repertoire, Akademi has recruited 8 dancers to embody the choreography and continue the legacy of this important piece of choreography. Following auditions in the summer, 8 dancers were selected learning the original Kumudini Lakhia ‘Ekatra’. Rehearsals took place in December and performance dates are currently being considered for summer 2011 onwards.
Corporate Events
Diwali celebration with Barclays Wealth, Visit London Awards.
Artists Professional Development
Akademi held an Artists meeting on 16th November 2010. Sharings by the following artists were supported: Kali Chandrasegaram, Divya Kasturi, Subathra Subramaniam, Aakash Odedra.
Akademi continued to manage the Arts Council England South Asian Choreographic Fund (Associate Choreographers). The Associate Choreographers are: Kali Chandrasegaram, Aakash Odedra and Subathra Subramaniam.
Marketing
Website
Akademi’s website had visits from people in 72 different countries in this period and peaked at 1500 visitors in November.
www.southasiandance.org.uk
The current newsletter database has 3143 active members (-1.2% v previous quarter). However, active mailing list subscriptions have actually gone up compared to unsubscriptions in the quarter.
Facebook
Akademi’s Facebook has recently hit its limit of 5,000 friends, so a new ‘page’, which allows unlimited friends, has been created and friends are requested to move across to be ‘fans’ of Akademi on the newly created page. Both pages will run side by side in the meantime.
Twitter
A Twitter has been set up for SADA (https://twitter.com/SouthAsianDance), and all listings posted on SADA are also posted on Twitter. To date the Twitter site has 299 followers, an 11.2% increase since September 2010.
Akademi also now has its own Twitter, which is being followed by 135 people.
General
Volunteers
Sibilla Robutti volunteered with Akademi in the office in November.
Funding submissions and monitoring
Quarterly monitoring was completed for Camden Council. The Skills Funding Agency undertook an audit of our work on both Re-Act 3 and Take 2.
We were successful in completing the Pre Qualification Questionnaires for the Skills Funding Agency. We have submitted outline applications to Comic Relief and the Drummond Foundation. Full applications have been submitted to Decibel and Barnet Council. We are planning to apply to Big Lottery Reaching Communities, Heritage Lottery and the Transition Fund. We will also be tendering for further Skills Funding Agency work.
We are applying to be part of the National Portfolio organisations at the Arts Council.
Funding
Regrettably London Councils have cut all funding to Category B and C programmes from which we receive two grants totaling £75,000. These will cease from July 2011.
Safeguarding
Akademi continues to hold regular surgeries for artists to support them through the CRB application process; and to uphold our practice in relation to our safeguarding policy endorsed by Camden Safeguarding Children Board in the recruitment and contracting of artists. No safeguarding or well-being incidents have occurred.
