Category: Visual Arts and Dance

Projects relating to Dance

Viv’s website

Over the past few years I’ve been part of the campaign to save Moseley Road Baths in Balsall Heath. As a group we’ve had some fantastic events and produced some great work. Not only are all the members of the group incredibly passionate about the building and the need for swimming in this inner-city community, they all seem to have a multitude of talents!

One member who has shared her skills for the campaign is Vivienne Harrison. A few years ago she took some wonderful photos of the building for our Strategy Document which outlined the group’s proposals for turning the building into a viable swimming and community facility. The fact that a voluntary organisation with limited resources was able to put out such an impressive looking and beautifully laid out booklet was really testament to her hard work and skill.

Last year she also worked on bringing these images to life through the Moseley Road Baths Virtual Tour which takes visitors to the site through the whole building, including areas not currently open to the public.

So, although shamefully I’ve not made it to any of her exhibitions yet, I’m pleased to let you all know that a selection of her work is available to view on her new website at www.vivienneharrison.co.uk. Please have a look and keep an eye out for upcoming exhibitions!

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CiB wins!

I’m really thrilled to pass on the news that Created in Birmingham has been announced as the winner of the Best UK Blog at the 2008 Weblog Awards!  A huge thanks to everyone who voted, I’m chuffed to bits that Birmingham is setting the standard for innovative and constructive ways of using the internet!

What’s more, the campaign around the voting has been brilliant, with more and more people chatting, networking, tagging, twittering and commenting.  The beauty of CiB is that it is all about interacting, about dialogue, a social tool for constructing something positive and tangible in the real world.

Hopefully it signifies a shift away from this horrible adversarial blogging style, where ‘commentators’ post up their vitriolic opinions which are then followed by hundreds of comments from people who enjoy picking fights.  Yes, Melanie Phillips, I do mean you.

The thing that really excites me is that CiB will have a whole new community of readers and contributors so the hope is that it will go from strength to strength, and in turn, so will creative activities around Birmingham.  It makes such a huge difference to me to feel like I’m a part of something so exciting.  Like so many ventures, it’s really the sum of its parts, so the onus is now on us to get involved.  Yes, that means you as well.

To get you started, please have a read of this CiB blog post about how to use RSS feeds.  If you don’t already use them it is well worth having a look at, I use my Apple Mail program to access my feeds, and in the past I’ve used the Firefox Web Brower but there are many other methods, just choose one to suit you.  The CiB post also has links to a number of excellent Birmingham Blogs which you may find useful.  Oh, and don’t forget to add me too!

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Created in Birmingham – vote now!!!

VOTE NOW!!!

Brummies are notoriously bad at shouting about the things that we’re good at and when we do we generally end up reeling off names of bands that haven’t seen the inside of a recording studio for the past two decades.

That has changed in the past few years with a whole host of blogs springing up to draw attention to some of the great stuff happening (or not happening as the case may be!) across the city.  Just take a look at Up Yer Brum for an eclectic mix of photos and stories voted on by the public.  Or the ever entertaining Birmingham It’s Not Shit run by Jon Bounds who brought us ‘Talk Like a Brummie Day‘ and urged us to spend 11 hours on the 11 bus route!

Amongst the best blogs is Created in Birmingham which does pretty much what it says on the tin – a one-stop shop for finding out about the creative goings-on in Brum.  It’s been nominated for the 2008 weblog awards and stands an excellent chance of winning.

Not only would this be a huge boost to the creative community in Birmingham and the people who have put so much time into developing the website, it also heralds a new era where people can link up more easily than ever.  I’m currently teaching film-making at Matthew Boulton College and Created in Birmingham  is an excellent means of encouraging students to share their work with others and breaking down traditional barriers between the supposed ‘Creative Industry’ and those who are making their first tentative steps into their field of choice.

If I’ve not convinced you, have a read of this post from another nominee, Pete Ashton, urging you to vote for Created in Birmingham.  I’ll save my blood pressure and let him explain why the current leader, Melanie Phillips shouldn’t win!

You can vote every day until 13th January – VOTE NOW!

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Them and Their Movie

The BBC ‘Me and My Movie’ workshop which I worked on last week turned out to be a really action packed day with lots of great ideas and enthusiasm from all of the young people who took part.  The finished two minute film will be put forward for a CBBC ‘Me and My Movie Award’ in association with BAFTA.

This article on the BBC Birmingham website gives  a flavour of some of the activities we got up to.  Huge thanks are due to Jenni, Tessa and Andrea at the BBC for all their hard work.  Well done to all the young people, keep on making movies!

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DanceXchange project

I packed my passport and traveled as far afield as Telford, Stoke-on-Trent and Dudley to document the work that the ‘Dance Artists in Residence’ (DAiRs) were doing. The 2007 Tour was the culmination of over two years of dance development work in five areas across the West Midlands. The range of activities is too broad to list here (I’ve now added an Arts and Performance page with further information), but it was so inspiring to see just how much young people benefited from the workshops and performances. As with so many projects I work on, the team running and implementing the programme were great to work with, all credit to them for the positive comments from the young people!

This project was the first one I’ve done with a two camera set-up of a performance. In spite of a few technical hiccups, the end result looks really quite swish! In addition, the DVD features an interactive menu featuring informative slides. Really useful for getting across some of the nitty gritty facts and figures!

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