A new fly-on-the-wall documentary shows the impact of the arts on young people who have been excluded from school
The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, supported by Arts Council England, has just launched Everything Stopped, a groundbreaking new DVD. The film documents the way in which the arts, exemplified here by dance, can reach out to young people in the most difficult circumstances and transform their view of themselves – and how other people view them.
“I was kicked out of school… and everything stopped.”
Having been the first major funder to encourage arts interventions in Pupil Referral Units (PRUs), the Gulbenkian Foundation decided to augment its programme of financial support and research publications in this field with a documentary showing how arts projects actually work in such settings.
The Foundation commissioned Protein Dance, a professional touring dance company still relatively fresh to this area of work but with two successful projects already under its belt, to undertake a three-week intensive residency at the Arts Depot in Barnet, working with students from the Pavilion Study Centre, a local Pupil Referral Unit.
“It’s as if they escaped into a different world.”
Filmmaker Dan Williams followed the project from its first faltering steps to its culmination in an extraordinary public performance. The resulting DVD is a vital document about the impact that the arts can have on young people who have almost lost touch with the mainstream education system – and who, in many cases, have little sense of their own worth and potential.
“It’s things like this that can influence the rest of a person’s life.”
The film is also a revelation of the challenges that face artists and teaching staff in making such projects a success. In the notes accompanying the DVD, arts consultant and author Richard Ings writes:
This film is not a how-to guide to running an arts project in a PRU. It contains all the chaos and risk of a creative event and, by telling it like it was, it offers viewers something much more useful than a formula: a privileged insight into one unique project and the chemistry that made it possible. It shows both the journey made and how precarious getting there can be. It is both inspiring and cautionary – and, as such, a film that anyone interested in this kind of work can watch and learn from.
Anyone involved in arts work in educational or youth justice settings will find this DVD an essential addition to their resources. It has something to say, too, to viewers who have responsibility for policy and funding in this important area of work. As one stunned teacher commented afterwards:
“This is what they should be doing… it was excellent, unbelievable. They’re different kids.”
Copies of the DVD Everything Stopped are available, free of charge, on request from Nick Randell Associates youth arts consultancy. To obtain a copy please email: dvd@nrassociates.co.uk
Notes to editors
Further information/contacts
Nick Randell Associates is an independent youth arts consultancy business. It has been engaged by the Gulbenkian Foundation to manage the promotion and distribution of Everything Stopped.
For more information on the project, or contact details for the Pavilion Study Centre, Protein Dance, or the Arts Depot, please contact Nick Randell.
T: 01386 860390
M: 07778 795812
E: nick@nrassociates.co.ukCalouste Gulbenkian Foundation
The United Kingdom Branch of the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Foundation supports innovative activities in the arts, social change, education and Anglo-Portuguese cultural relations. For a number of years the Education Programme promoted arts activities in Pupil Referral Units and Learning Support Units. It also published two reports on this area of work, Creating Chances: Arts Interventions in Pupil Referral Units and Learning Support Units (2004) by Richard Ings; and Serious Play: An Evaluation of Arts Activities in Pupil Referral Units and Learning Support Units (2005) by the National Foundation for Educational Research. In addition it has recently funded The Art of Engagement: A Handbook for Using the Arts in Pupil Referral Units (2007) by Bob Adams of Doncaster Community Arts.
Contact: Simon Richey, Assistant Director (Education)
T: 0207 636 5313
E: simon.richey@gulbenkian.org.uk
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