This year YARD Theatre welcomes Sooree Pillay! We have a new exhibition in the Mezz at the NAE ‘In Conflict: Reflections On The Constant War In Iraq’. by Artist Satta Hashem. This work is all about the human experience of living through conflict. What kind of conflict do you have to deal with? Could you live through brutal times? How would you cope?

Our main exhibition at the NAE is ‘Realism In Rawiya’ starting on the 25th January in the main gallery space. This is a collective body of photographs from artists in Rawiya. This exploring different stories and political issues in the middle east.

YARD will be working around these themes and devising a project/performance based on them in April.

The YARD Theatre sessions are at the regular times of:

Every Wednesday,  5pm – 7pm

Age Range: 11 -25

Still – An Exhibition curated by young people for young people

New Art Exchange Young People’s Panel are group of young creatives passionate about contemporary arts practices. This season in partnership with Nottingham Trent University they will present their first exhibition showcasing some of the best photographic work from Nottingham’s young communities.

Based upon the theme of documentary photography, the exhibition Still gives young photographers the chance to explore the world around them and reflect on significant issues to curate a unique collection of still images that depict the world as they see it.

8 MARCH – 20 APRIL 2013

CENTRAL GALLERY

Banquo is a Scottish general in the king’s army and Macbeth’s friend (but is later is seen as a threat to Macbeth so Macbeth has him killed).

The things i enjoy about Playing Banquo is that he is generally quiet a loyal friend to Macbeth, and he also has a heart unlike Macbeth and seems to see the positive side of situations instead of the negative.

The things i dont like about Banquo are that i think he deserves alot more than he has, because he  generally has got a good head on his shoulders, he appears to be quiet a deep thinker and likes to try and take on the roll of keeping the peace.

In rehearsals  iv really enjoyed learning more about Shakespeares way of interpreting things and have also enjoyed working with all the other cast as they are all good at what they do and show dedication to their work, which keeps me going also.

When i first read the ‘Macbeth’ Script, to be honest i didnt know how we was all going to pull it off, what with all the strange Shakespeare words  and the length of the script to along side this BUT with the spectacular  tutoring from Rachael and Alison, we now know what all the script means (every word) and i really enjoy and appreciate the ‘Macbeth’ play now i fully understand it and also am glad to be a part of it.

YYAC are currently looking for young people with a passion for theatre. If you are creative, assertive and interested in a future career within the arts, then Yard Young Actors Company is for you!

Yard Young Actors was founded in August 2008 and since then the company have gone from strength to strength, performing in venues around the country. Last year YYAC collaborated with Nottingham Playhouse and performed the Gaza Monologues as part of NEAT 2012. This year the company beat off fierce competition and reached international success by securing one of three UK places in the International young people’s theatre festival, Contacting the World devised and managed by Contact, Manchester. Six companies, including YYAC, will take part in Contacting the World festival, 9 – 15 July 2012.

We are currently looking for new members to be part of the next phase of the companies journey, if you think you have what it takes come along to our audition day on Wednesday 29 August, 11am – 1pm.

The day will consist of workshop style audition exploring YYAC’s unique style of theatre making, each auditionee will be asked to prepare a short contemporary speech no longer than two minutes long. Please come wearing comfortable clothing and bring a bottle of water.

Please contact Rachael@nae.org.uk or call 0115 924 8630 for further information and to book.

For further information on YARD visit:
www.facebook.com/YardProjects
Follow us on @YouthYard

For further information on Contacting the World visit:
www.contactmcr.com/

For further information on First Floor visit:
www.first-floor.info/theatre-makers/
www.facebook.com/FirstFloorTheatre
Follow us on @FFNottingham
]]> http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/audition-for-yard-young-actors-company/feed/ 0 yardyouth http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/yard-return-from-ctw-2012-manchester-to-perform-in-corby/ http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/yard-return-from-ctw-2012-manchester-to-perform-in-corby/#comments Tue, 17 Jul 2012 17:36:57 +0000 YARD http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/?p=332 ]]>

Yard have returned from a successful performance of #Faceme at Contacting The World 2012 at Contact Theatre Manchester. They had a great time meeting lots of new people and joining in with exciting workshops.  Every night they watched a different performance from a youth performance group.

Next they will be performing #Face On Friday 20 July at 7.30pm at The Corby Cube for Contacting the World Click here for details

http://www.youngpeopleconnected.com/

Visit our fundraising page to help get us to Manchester this July – every little helps and we are truly grateful!

Day 2 CTW March Meet

So last night there was an openmic night at Contact after a few Mc’s and singers performed. However the biggest response of the night was from our very own CTW Crew! Gai had written a poem that day in Thai and Tan asked me to translate it! K. I did my best and they took to the stage, Tan read the translation whilst Gai played the Flute, they thenswapped over, Gai reading the original poem in Thai. After the poem Gai then broke out into a rap in the style of the MC’s from earlier in the evening…..classic!

So today was a more formal day,meeting a lot of people and doing some provisional planning for festival week.We met Frilly the company evaluating the festival, the Tech Team, Marketing Team and the folks in the seat of power as far as us eating festival week!

We got a quick blogging lesson,learning how to blog properly on the Contact website, so yes, I am now officiallya blogger!

We had an hour & halfworkshop with Montse where we began to prepare for the workshops with theschools tomorrow. Then after dinner we got to chill for an hour or so before wegot to watch a dress rehearsal of a performance of Wizard in Contacts Space 2.

Overall it’s been a good day,all the reps are familiar with each other now so we are all getting alongreally well with each other and having some good times which I’m sure is only abrief snippet of how much fun the actual week is going to be!

Day 2 CTW Manchester………DONE!

Hello Therrrreee!!

Today was our third and final day of the March meet and what a busy day! Had an early start as Tan & Gaiinvited all the rep’s to their highly superior apartment, having a 2ndfloor, for breakfast! So myself, Danielle from Trinidad & Tobago’s Wordsmiths’group and Montse started our day with a Thai breakfast of pork steak, salad, anolive omelette and something with some sort of finely slice meat withmushrooms! OH! And I had a Kiwi yogurt for afters . Tan also wanted to startcreating a film this morning also which produced some joke moments!

When getting to Contact we had acouple of hours to go over our workshop plans and what was going to be happening when the schools arrived before breaking for a speedy lunch.

After lunch we had a photo shoot with the festival photographer, which was awkward for me because I hate photos lol.

The schools arrived earlier than expected so we got ourselves into the space and prepared for the sound of school children…. Baba introduced each school to their ‘Twins’ and each was followed by a intro video about the group, except for Wordsmiths who performed via telepresence! With their rep performing live! After more photos with theschools we broke off to begin workshops. These where really good and the kids really responded well and seemed to really enjoy learning from their ‘Twins’.

After the schools left we thenhad no time to rest as we needed to tech and prepare for our preview eveningwhere we had to perform a small snippet of performance. This was quite excitingbecause it just brought it all to life. The evening went as follows; CYACperformed a 5min piece as the hosting company, Wordsmiths performed anothertelepresence performance, Tan & Gai performed a piece of music with themplaying their flutes live on stage, straight after that I went on and performeda piece of spoken word written by our very own Mia Johnson which was backed byour Thai Twin playing the flute to the poem which worked AMAZINGLY well! Really showing the integration of the twinning, yeah that’s right we rocked it! Then there was another telepresence with a dancer and bass player/beat boxer in NewYork, Tan & Gai playing the flutes live, the rep from Nigeria’s CrowneTroop dancing live and also a dancer from Manchester’s Boundless which createdso many interesting images it was great! Then to bring the evening to an endBoundless rained it in for us.

After a huge Turkish buffet at a really nice restaurant and trying to meet all the others in the Manchester groups that brings our last day to an end

Bringing Thailand to Nottingham!

So! After a saddening little farewell meeting of the reps in Tan & Gai’s room this morning, we had saidour goodbyes and Me Tan & Gai set sail for Nottingham, or, set rail Ishould say. We got to Nottingham in the afternoon and en route to the hotel Idecided to take the boys to meet the wondrous Mia at her place of work so theycould put a face to the poem.

After checking them in I letthem settle for a few hours and I returned to my humble abode. I met back upwith them a few hours later and took them on a small tour of the city centre.Gai had already said he wanted to meet Robin Hood as he wants to be one of the Merry Men lol, so I made sure we got to go to the castle. We got to go in acouple of art galleries and luckily there was a global market in the MarketSquare so that was nice to go around, we all decided to try something new soTan and me had Kangaroo Burgers for the first time and Gai had an Ostrich Burger for the first time. Yes that’s right we ate Skippy! He tastes pretty darn good too!

Proving that Nottingham is a lotsmaller than Manchester, we saw around half of YARD in town! This was good in away because the guys could meet before the meal.

7pm was the time we introducedTan & Gai to one of the most crucial parts of the culture of YARD…….Nandos! We all met in Nandos and were tightly packed into a cubicleto chow down on the holiness that is peri peri chicken. We devoured those carcass’with great force, said farewell to Zara as she departed for Paris and welcomed our Twin’s to the neighbourhood.

I am glaringly aware that this is the first official post for YPP, so I will do my best to fill you in on our progress so far whilst hopefully providing you with enough suspended phrases and cliff hangers to have you coming back for more. It’s a risky business organising workshops you know, and we are on the front line…

We are planning our sessions for the first week of June and are lucky enough to be able to use the work of Hetain Patel as a spring board, a catalyst if you will, from which we can base the content. We already have three fantastic artists on board who have collaborated with YPP to build some diverse and equally brilliant responses to his work which centres itself on cultural diversities and the idea of difference among society at large. Patel’s work transcends numerous mediums with relentless poignancy as he explores his Indian heritage and the ways in which he has experienced what he calls ‘an ideal of India.’ It is of course highly biographical since, as Patel perfectly proposes;

‘If the western influence of my birthplace is embedded in my way of thinking and the physical mannerisms of my body, is it possible to retrain these ways of understanding the world with an Indian code?’

Click on the image above to access Hetain Patel’s website.

 Patel is also very aware of creating a relationship between the art work and audience, something which we hope the workshops will illuminate through the idea of an individual cultural identity within a larger societal framework. The sessions are for children aged 10-16, each one engaging and explorative in their own right. The multiplicity of Hetain’s works, moving through film, performance and photography enables us to explore cultural identity and it’s boarders without limits and across the three workshops groups will have the opportunity to explore and celebrate their wonderfully diverse environment, through performance, spoken word, sound art, sculpture, photography and anything else they can get their hands on!

There is however, much to be done before the fun begins and I hope to blog our progress regularly (no pressure) to keep you all up to date with what’s going on. Equally, it will be a lasting record for us to refer back to for next time so we can streamline our approach and develop new ways to present ideas and encourage young people to respond to art that is perhaps more relevant to them than they first realise. During and after the workshops, we hope to also create a video blog which will include footage of the sessions taking place and responses from the young people in the style of mini-interviews. we can also use this as a record but more importantly, it will be something that those who attended can freely access which documents their experience and brings their final piece (whatever that may be!) home.

I hope this has given you an idea of what we hope to achieve and blogs to follow will tell you how we’re going to do it! You can follow our progress using the Young People’s Panel tab, under which you will find fabulous posts and photos by any member of the YPP who fancies a little spout about our progress. There will also be links to Hetain’s work and YARDyouth in general and any other juicy bits of information that we think deserves to be shared.

Thanks very much for supporting YARD and until next time, check out Patel’s exhibition at NAE here: http://www.thenewartexchange.org.uk/HetainPatel.php

Holly Stanton

YPP

]]> http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/2012/04/03/yard-young-peoples-panel-the-ypp-workshop-blog/feed/ 0 yardyouth Hetain http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/kyle-goes-to-contact-in-manchester/ http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/kyle-goes-to-contact-in-manchester/#comments Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:17:48 +0000 YARD http://yardyouth.wordpress.com/?p=179 ]]> Hi guys!
Thought I’d do a lil blog for this lil visit. Day 1 is nearly coming to an end, aching l after the balletboyz workshop last night and a very energetic workshop with montse this morning! Overall it has been a good day! I have met and been with all the representatives with all the companies and they are all really kool. Tan and Gai are here and looking forward to meeting you all, Gai has asked that he meet Robin Hood lol.

I met Baba the artistic director of contact and he seems very eager to see what we are coming up with (no pressure). Everyone here is gearing to go and i can’t say it enough we really need to step it up and slick it up! Just being here makes it a LOT more real for me and it’s really gearing me up in terms of excitement and inspiration!!