In transit

In arguing the case for arts-based methodologies with funders and policy-makers at higher levels, the Thames Valley Partnership provides an unusually persuasive model: while most organisations making such interventions have come out of the arts sector, and might be perceived by more sceptical outsiders as having a vested interest in developing new ‘markets’ for their services, Thames Valley Partnership was established in 1993 as a way of combining the resources of organisations from the statutory, voluntary and private sectors to find long-term, sustainable solutions to problems of crime and social exclusion and it is only over the last six years or so that it has made a decisive shift and put ‘arts at the heart’ of its approach to community safety.  That means it discovered for itself the power of the arts as a practical solution to a practical crisis.

Last May I was asked to witness and write about a dance project, devised by Judy Munday at TVP, that took just over a week to turn a group of variously 'disaffected' young people into a contemporary dance company.  This was a temporary transformation of course but it was startling.  Rather than simply examine impact, however – recognising that all good participatory arts project have this potential to change attitudes and even behaviour – Judy asked me to look at the project from a fresh angle or two. 

Click here to download:
In Transit.pdf (257 KB)
(download)

Click here to download:
New people or new dance Transit 2010.pdf (141 KB)
(download)