ON THE EDGE

An International Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences

BIRMINGHAM 2016

TYA UK, the British centre of ASSITEJ and TYA Ireland would like to invite ASSITEJ to hold the 2016 Global Gathering in Birmingham. TYA Ireland and TYA UK believes that bringing the ASSITEJ Global Gathering to the UK in 2016 will provide huge opportunities for children, young people, families, schools, artists and the TYA sector. This will be the first time that an ASSITEJ Congress or Global Gathering has been held in the UK since one of the founding meetings for ASSITEJ in 1964 which took place in London. In 2016, we are delighted to be able to welcome the ASSITEJ international community to Birmingham and host all ASSITEJ programmes, projects and networks within an exciting UK wide and international festival. ON THE EDGE

Across the UK and Ireland something quite unusual is happening. Theatre-makers from across this group of islands are on the edge, on the cusp of defining a new theatre language that blows what we used to have out of the water. There’s a kind of radicalism in the air. From Katie Mitchell to the Barbican to contemporary dance - somewhere between live art and conventional theatre - a whole generation of theatre-makers are searching for a new aesthetic and theatre language that is not so much about story or society but about theatre itself. And, wonderfully, that change is nowhere more visible than in the theatre that is being made for children and young people.

ON THE EDGE

An International Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences

Purni Morell, Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre London

BIRMINGHAM

An extraordinary jewel of a city, President Bill Clinton

Birmingham has the youngest population of any city in Europe.

It is a vibrant internationally connected city both in terms of its physical transport links and also because of its diverse populations who have come here from all over the world.

Birmingham has a city council supportive of the Arts, with a stated cultural policy

centring on youth and diversity. In anticipation of the festival the city council has designated 2016 ”Year of Youth Arts”.

More than 50 languages are spoken in the city making it one of the most

welcoming and culturally diverse in Europe.

It is a buzzing, fun city located in the centre of England which has an established track record in hosting large-scale international events.

Birmingham has used arts and culture to transform its city centre. It has heavily

invested in theatres and cultural organisations, has a wealth of small scale theatre companies and a strong track record in participatory and engagement work.

The city has an international outlook with partner and sister cities across the

world

It is an affordable city where drinks, meals and accomodation are modestly priced.

The city has 500 schools and 5 universities.

It has more canals than Venice, more parks than any other European city and is

the home of Cadbury's chocolate!

Birmingham Rep, 2016 Festival Centre

THE VENUES

The main festival hub will be the newly re-developed Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The REP shares its entrance with the new Library of Birmingham – Europe’s largest regional library. There are ten world class performance venues within a ten minute walk of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Other potential venues include the CBSO Centre, Crescent Theatre, mac, The Old Rep, The Hippodrome and Birmingham City University’s Parkside campus. There will be one central box office providing tickets for all festival shows and one accessible website in English.

WHY 2016?

2016 is an important year for artists in the UK and Ireland

It is the centenary of the Easter Rising which led to the independence of the Irish Republic.

It is 50 years since in 1965, the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry formed the first ever Theatre in Education (TIE) company

The Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare’s Globe are to link up in the summer of 2016 to help host a one-week conference marking the 400th anniversary of the playwright’s death.

A Birmingham school

involved in Birmingham Repertory Theatre’s youth theatre programme.

WHO WILL LEAD THE FESTIVAL? Steve Ball, Associate Director of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Chair of TYA England will be the Executive Producer. Purni Morell, Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre, London will be Artistic Director. She will be advised by Tony Reekie (Imaginate) Adele Al-Salloum (Spark Festival) Ali Fitzgibbon (Young at Art) Miranda Thain (Take Off) Emily Coleman (Hijack Children's Festival, Brighton) and Kevin Lewis (Theatre Iolo, Wales) Philip Hardy, Chair of TYA Ireland and Artistic Director of Barnstorm Theatre will be the Global Gathering Director. Nina Hajiyianni, Chair of TYA UK and Artistic Director of Action Transport Theatre will lead on communications. Paul Mc Eneaney, Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre, NI and co-chair of TYA NI will be Welcome Director. Natalie Wilson, Artistic Director of Theatre Centre, London will lead the Next Generation programme.

Birmingham 2016 will be led by TYA UK and TYA Ireland as an inclusive festival with involvement from all four nations of the UK and Ireland. It will be delivered by a strategic partnership involving TYA UK, TYA Ireland, Arts Council England, Arts Council Ireland, Birmingham City Council, Birmingham City University and the Spark Festival. Funding will be sought from Birmingham City Council, the Arts Councils of England, Wales and Ireland, Birmingham City University, businesses, charities and trusts.

The Gathering 2012

ARTISTIC PROGRAMME

We aim to showcase the best of world theatre for young audiences and share this wealth with audiences from Birmingham and around the world. We aim to programme around 20 UK and international productions with representation from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe, chosen by Purni Morell, Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre, and a group of associate colleagues. Some shows will have at their heart a fresh approach to a familiar subject; others will tell old tales in surprising ways. Central to all is our belief that the world does not have to be the way it is, and that art is a tool that makes us see the possibilities that lie invisible to us in our daily lives.

Our plan has three guiding principles: Beauty and truth before all things The audience today, not the audience of the future The 21st century, and everyone who lives in it

Alongside the programme of curated performances, we would also like to include

a strand of unfinished work, or work by emerging artists a strand of non-theatre work from other disciplines and

art-forms an uncurated, open fringe to which anyone can bring a

performance

HIGHER EDUCATION STRAND

The HE strand will be developed with ITYARN and will work in tandem with the performance programme through a series of forum, platform and workshop events encouraging leading practitioners and academics from a range of countries to explore and disseminate theory and practice. The higher education strand will be developed by Chris Elwell (Half Moon, London), Jeremy Harrison (Rose Bruford College) and Hannah Philips (Birmingham City University) and also connect the festival with training and education bodies, aiming to build stronger links, nationally and internationally.

NEXT GENERATION The NG programme will invite emerging artists to participate in a series of workshops, seminars and lectures and will also include a special focus on artistic leadership and cultural policy. It will draw from the founding principles of other ASSITEJ gatherings, to bring together international emerging artists interested in making theatre for young audiences. Collaboration and networking will underpin the programme and present artists with structured activities to share experiences and develop new ways of thinking that draw from cross-cultural practice. We aim to highlight and support the transition artists can make from creating their own work to the enabling of other artists as artistics directors, leaders and strategists. The programme will be accessible to artists from all cultures and working within a variety of artistic mediums.

INCLUSIVE THEATRE

TYA UK has a Disability/Inclusivity team who have worked together for the past three years. Many productions programmed by the Artistic Director feature disability and inclusivity within their creation, amongst their performers, for their audiences and as a theme within their work. We hope the team will be given the opportunity to curate debates and workshops that feature and celebrate the best of this work. The team has also supported the formation of IIAN – the International Inclusive Arts Network, which is a new strand of work within ASSITEJ. It is run by an International Core group, Chaired by Daryl Beeton UK, Artistic Director of Kazzum.