The Spark Annual Report 2015

Sparking creativity in unexpected

PLACES

Annual Report 2015

www.thesparkarts.co.uk

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Our Vision The Spark enables children to enjoy the opportunities for discovery offered by the arts as audiences, as learners and as creators of their own art.

Our Mission The Spark gives children from 0 - 13 opportunities to immerse themselves in the arts by experiencing a wide range of high quality work, which inspires, empowers and educates.

Through the presentation of an annual festival in Leicester schools, theatres and community venues, and through collaboration with other agencies, we offer children the space to discover their own skills, passions and potential, as audience, participants and creators of their own work.

Through a year round programme of Participation & Learning and Bespoke Events, The Spark facilitates and commissions a range of projects, which complement and extend the work of the festival.

The Spark works to increase its impact on the creation and presentation of arts for children in the UK and beyond.

Our Focus

At Your School

Our work in partnership with schools

In Your Venue

Our work with cultural partners across the city

On Your Doorstep

Our work in partnership with communities

< Tales of Birbal

Mashi Theatreâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s travelling storytellers stop to share enchanting, ancient Indian stories akin to Aesopâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Fables, featuring music and puppetry. www.thesparkarts.co.uk

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Festival Highlights 2015 This year’s Spark Festival was another resounding success with over 20,000 attendees participating in our festival across 13 fabulous days. We are especially proud of the work we commissioned: The Young People’s Jazz Club & Tales of Birbal.

“What a great show. If you are wanting laughter, to go into the imaginations and connect with your inner child, then this play has it all! A great show, props and production.”

Young People’s Jazz Club The Spark launched the UK’s first Jazz Club for Young People in partnership with Indo - Jazz Clarinettist Arun Ghosh. The performances were aimed at bringing young people and their families into a professional Jazz Club to hear great music in an intimate and authentic setting.

Yateen Makwana, Mashi Theatre audience member

Arun led workshops with young people from 3 Leicester primary schools. The residency culminated when each school spent a day at the Cookie, a local music venue. Rehearsals took place in the morning followed by an afternoon performance to their school peers, including performing their own compositions.

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Mashi Theatre The Spark commissioned the development of Tales of Birbal as part of our Festival Programme. The collaboration was driven by a desire to develop new and diverse work for children and young people in Leicester. Mashi’s show and storytelling workshop provided opportunities for children of all cultures to enjoy the ancient Indian Stories of Akbar.

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< Young People’s Jazz Club

artists / companies

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Arun Ghosh launching our very first Young People's Jazz Club at The Cookie.

181 events

20,000 over

19

days

venues

people

schools

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children’s centres

www.thesparkarts.co.uk

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Animating Libraries in the East Midlands Imaginative Spaces is a year-long initiative which places Artists in residence within a library to support storytelling as a medium to promote reading for pleasure and language development.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Really positive feedback from local residents and workers about the huge range of activities and events our Artist in Residence has made happen - we have always believed in the power of creativity to re-generate the community.â&#x20AC;?

Our Artists work together with librarians and the community to bring stories to life, enhancing the Library offer and transforming the space into a hive of book-based arts activity. By the end of 2015 four Leicester Libraries will have hosted over 5,000 hours of inter-generational arts participation and performance work which engaged and developed up to 20,000 local readers, writers, story makers / tellers and audience members.

Angie Wright - Chief Officer,

In partnership with Leicester Library Services,

B-Inspired, Braunstone Community

supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

"I've heard that in this library, if you read a story, it comes true..."

First words spoken by a girl entering the library

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< I Believe in Unicorns

4,282

Extra participants

School visits

27

1

one

5

1

Youth theatre group

Community performances

18 mic session

hours of open

Artist in

Library

professional theatre performances

A library full of books comes to life with Wizard Presents magical stage adaptation of the enthralling Michael Morpurgo book.

www.thesparkarts.co.uk

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Bespoke Commissions The Spark have worked with Leicester and Nottinghamshire Library Services to create 3 bespoke new writing commissions that create high quality professional performances for Libraries.

All three plays have been created in collaboration with, and are performed for, younger audiences, schools and families and have reached a combined audience of 1,530 across the East Midlands.

The First WWI play for schools – Years 5, 6 and 7 (2014) The Petal & The Wire for everyone over 12 years (2014) A Boy and a Bear in a Boat for ages 5 - 9 (2015)

95%

of audiences

said performances enhance the library’s offer to the local community

“What a wonderful show! The children (and us adults too!) thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you for coming to Lincoln Central Library today” A Boy and a Bear in a Boat audience member

98%

of schools and participants agree performances have encouraged their children to become more active members of their local library

98%

of participants

would attend more Spark Arts activities

100%

of participants would visit the library again

< A Boy and a Bear and a Boat

An ambitious new piece of family theatre designed for a library setting, toured East Midlands Libraries and the Edinburgh Fringe festival.

www.thesparkarts.co.uk

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Research & Development

New Technologies

Pop Up Play Pop Up Play is a new product developed in partnership between The Spark Arts for Children, De Montfort University and Dotlib (technology partner). Pop Up Play (PUP) is a mixed reality creative play system that enables users to create learning opportunities for children and young people to enhance their creativity, language and communication skills, using this immersive digital technology.

Pop Up Play is part theatre, part film, part game, part playground. The system takes images, live or recorded and projects them onto a screen.

Video cameras with motion tracking then place participants into a projected world for exploration and open-ended learning.

“simple and accessible Pop Up Play giving a new era to digital education #SparkPUP” Immerse

Pop Up Play has created new practices supporting creative learning and communication skills with and for children and young people.

10 artists

Download Pop Up Play for free at www.thesparkarts.co.uk/popupplay Supported by the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts - Nesta, Arts & Humanities Research Council and public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England

at

4 < Pop Up Play

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6

venues

Schools Art centre Museum and Art Gallery

FREE to download software with creative digital play ideas, media, case studies, support documents and an online support community.

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children

1

5

2

teachers

academics

new product developed by

2 symposia www.thesparkarts.co.uk 11

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City Classroom The City Classroom was a pilot project that aimed to build new and sustainable models for place-based cultural education. Through the City Classroom we fostered five new collaborations between arts organisations and schools as part of the Leicester Local Learning Partnership. The projects provided young people not just with useful new skills, but with new insights into what artists do and how they themselves can develop their creativity using the natural and built environment that surrounds them.

The vision behind the project was to ensure that children and young people thrive through a rich and adventurous cultural education. This work flows out of the cultural ambition statement for Leicester and has been supported throughout by our relationship with The Mighty Creatives and Leicester City Council.

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Leicesters learning partnership includes Attenborough Arts Centre, Charnwood Arts, Leicester Print Workshop, Soft Touch Arts and The Mighty Creatives

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17

467

lead organisations

artists

6

total attendances

Leicester city school children

5

25

fully engaged teachers

schools producers

101 designed creative sessions specifically created and

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Young People had control over their learning as they were genuinely interested in the questions they posed. It was open ended and they felt it was theirs - they felt they had ownershipâ&#x20AC;?

Mellor Community Primary School

< Belonging in Belgrave Helping young people feel a closer connection to their community by exploring it, mapping it and reproducing and celebrating it through art.

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Financial Report

The Spark Staff

Financial year September 2014 - August 2015

The Spark continued to receive National Portfolio Organisation funding from Arts Council England and a grant from Leicester City Council, which represents about one fifth of our income. We are extremely grateful to both organisations for their continued support. This year has seen an increase in earned income through Service Level Agreements with Local Authorities and other agencies to deliver our work in libraries and schools.

The charity also received continued support from its corporate partners, trusts, foundations and donors. We would particularly like to thank all those individuals who ran the Leicester half marathon which made a significant contribution to our fundraising.

Income comparison 2014/15 against 2013/14

2014/ 2015

Income 2014/15

Arts Council England Grant Leicester City Council Grant Other Grants Fundraising & Sponsorship Earned Income Total income for the year

500,000 Expenditure 2014/15

17% 2% 28% 13% 40%

ÂŁ473,400

Festival Activity Library Activity Other Project Activity Core Staff Overheads

Total expenditure for the year

14% 26% 27% 28% 5%

ÂŁ415,810

Figures shown are based on pre-audited accounts.

A copy of our published accounts can be supplied on request.

< Digital Sparks

General Manager Harriet Roy

Press & Marketing Manager Keith Turner Development Manager Carrie Carruthers Projects Co-ordinator Gemma Kiddy

Arts Administration Intern Laura Evans

Marketing & Events Support Maya Biswas

2013/ 2014

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Director Adel Al-Salloum

Interactive artwork Water Light Graffiti by French digital artist Antonin Fourneau, at Phoenix during The Spark Festival 2015.

Board of Trustees Stephan Aal Lucy Bani David Bell (Chair) Sarah Brigham Mike Candler Ravinder Kaur Rachael Mabe Vijay Mistry Debbie Read Mahmood Reza Aksay Sharma John Townsend Patron Tim Crouch

Spark artists in residence Manya Benenson Andy Reeves Jayne Williams Student placements Abigail Battisto Samantha Newell Toral Odedra

Spark Photographer Pamela Raith Report design Mooli

www.thesparkarts.co.uk 15

Our Partners We would like to say a special thank you to all those who support The Spark Arts for Children.

Print Partner

Paper Partner

At Your School Partner

Design Partner

Media Partner

Media Partner

Festival Partners

Festival’s Official Hotel

mooli

Higher Education Partner

Media Partner

Equity, Kirby & West, Chutney Ivy

Funders

The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust • The Digital R&D Fund for the Arts The Edith Murphy Foundation • Florence Turner Trust The Hinrichsen Foundation • John Salmon Fund • Leicestershire and Rutland Community Foundation • Maud Elkington Charitable Trust The Mighty Creatives • The P&C Hickinbotham Charitable Trust • PRS for Music Foundation

Partner venues Abbey Park Alderman Richard Hallam Primary School Attenborough Arts Centre BBC Radio Leicester Beaumont Leys Library Belgrave Library Braunstone Community Primary School Braunstone Frith Primary School The BRITE Centre The Cookie Curve Folville Junior School Fosse Library Fosse Primary School The Guildhall

Hamilton Library Hinckley Library Holy Cross Catholic Primary School Humberstone Infant School Imperial Avenue Infant School Knighton Park LCB Depot Loughborough Library Mellor Community Primary School Melton Mowbray Library New Parks Children’s Centre New Parks Community College New Walk Museum and Art Gallery Oadby Library Pedestrian

Phoenix Pork Pie Library and Community Centre Rowley Fields Children’s Centre Rowlatts Hill Children’s Centre St Barnabas Library St. Barnabas C. of E. Primary School St Matthews Library Sandfield Close Primary School Shenton Primary School Spinney Hill Park Taylor Road Primary School The Y Thurnby Lodge Children’s Centre Woodland Grange Primary School

Contact Us

The Spark Arts for Children, LCB Depot, 31 Rutland Street, Leicester LE1 1RE

Tel: 0116 261 6893 Email: info@thesparkarts.co.uk Web: www.thesparkarts.co.uk Facebook

SparkArtsFestival

Twitter

@thesparkarts

The Spark Arts for Children is a company limited by guarantee, no.5254229. Registered charity no. 1106952.