MY WORLD MY WAY

My World My Way aims to produce a 15 minute documentary that will inspire young people across Europe to actively participate in their communities. The documentary aims to encourage our European youths to appreciate the attributes of their peers and help them understand that by working together they can build stronger, more tolerant, communities. Through the production and dissemination of this documentary, we aim to promote an understanding of cultural differences through arts centered interaction. Seven young people, aged 15 to 29, will be working together for 6 months to produce the documentary. This diverse group will develop their artistic and film-making abilities under the guidance of the experienced documentary and international journalist, Georja Calvin-Smith (BBC, France 24, ITV, Granada). She will be putting the project participants in contact with craft editors and cameramen as well as providing production consultation. The documentary will follow 3 young people over a period of 4 months as they prepare to compete in the New International Collaboration of Live Arts (NICOLA), Talent Factory 2011 Summer competition in London. We will see them interacting in their home environment, at their practice sessions and on the performance day itself. We will have monthly group ‘Euro-Youth’ Skype meetings with 4 other European youth community groups;Turkey - EU project volunteers association, Italy - Cammurrist, Holland – West Studio, Greece – SPIN¸ France - through French Touch to discuss the progress of our work, receive their input and discuss the screening of our work to their youth communities. This is with a view to inspire their respective youth communities to actively participate in their societies and engage with their multicultural communities.

MUSIC CONNECTION

Music Connection is a youth exchange programme between the United Kingdom, (through NICOLA), Italy(through E Cammurrist), Bulgaria (through Different Vision), Poland (through European Meeting Centre - Nowy Staw Foundation), France (through French Touch) and Holland (through Studio West). This music project funded by the British Council, through the European Commission has a theme of cultural influence in music, fashion and social issues. 42 young people will meet in London for a period of seven days to engage in a variety of activities, focused on researching music and their features in different cultures and creating innovative songs which will express their identity. These activities will include discussions and debates on several topics around the diversity of music, issues surrounding its related fashion and the positive and negative effects on young people and society. In addition, introduction and evaluation meetings will be held and a the group will prepare a performance that will be presented at the Talent Factory showcase on the 28th of October. The aim of the project is to enrich the young people’s knowledge on the origin, the development through time and place of music, and provide them an opportunity to voice their opinions, as well as create original items that reflect their own identity and individual cultural influences. Their impressions, visions, experiences, activities and final show will also be documented by videos and photos and presented in a documentary made by and for the youth.

NICOLA (New International Company Of Live Arts) Talent Factory Showcases

A series of showcases that allow our young members to perform live in front of audiences and talents scout. Following the popular talent competition format made popular by X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent etc, we hold auditions judged by a celebrity panel for performers of all kinds to qualify to appear in our showcases. Post audition we work with the young people weekly in our Art Hub to prepare them for their live performances.

Changes for 2011/12:

Following on from the successes of the first yearly showcase in February 2011 where an audience of 450 people watched the acts perform (from the show two of our performers were signed by a record company) we are increasing the frequency of the showcases to quarterly, culminating in a bigger yearly showcase featuring the best talent performing in front of a large audience. We will pull in many more performers from a much wider geographical spread as we will hold auditions in more locations within London. We will back this up with publicity in the relevant areas to gain as many participants as possible

ART HUB:

A weekly workshop (up to 40 young performers and artists) that helps facilitate collaborations and skills development in a welcoming, multicultural environment. Teaching and mentoring is provided by professionals who help the young people develop quickly and provide a sounding board for advice. We work on their image, live performance techniques and build them profile packages for use in marketing themselves. The frequency of the workshops will change from bi-weekly to weekly and there will be a larger throughput of young people with the expansion of the showcases. Currently Art Hub is an Advanced group whose members are those that have qualified from the Talent Factory Showcase auditions.

Changes for 2011/12:

This year will see the expansion of Art Hub to include the Advanced group as well as an Improvers group to fulfil our ambitions of being more inclusive with our engagement. We will increase the quantity of professional teaching sessions and increase mentoring in an effort to increase skills and confidence more rapidly. We are also seeking to include business focused sessions which aim to prepare the young people to setup their own business or social enterprise and make them more aware of how marketing them self as artist, work with record companies and talent managers.

Youth Committee:

Art Hub is driven by a youth committee made up of young people initially recruited through their involvement with the Talent Factory. The aim of the Youth Committee is for the young members to take over ownership of the Art Hub and responsibility for recruiting future members as well as planning and conducting monthly meetings. This will be done with the support of NICOLA’s staff, Trustees and advisors.