Leicestershire
Regional Co-ordinator - James Kelly
“In 2006 I took on the responsibility of becoming Pedestrian’s Regional Co-ordinator for Leicester. I have been developing relationships with other arts practitioners, going to gigs, meetings and generally being ‘the feet on the street’. We have been developing our network of tutors and giving artists the opportunity to inspire young minds.
Throughout the last few years, we have run successful workshops with Connexions and Creative Partnerships as well as a range of workshops for local schools, including the delivery of our OCN accredited courses in turntablism.
We are also developing a team of young volunteers who we have met through workshop delivery and they are motivating future projects in the region.”
Recent Activities:
LEICESTER ARTS & MUSEUMS SERVICE TAKE 2!
A second project has been set up with the Arts and Museums Service to explore using MCing, Music Production and Graphic Design as a way to allow young people to engage with the city’s galleries and museums. Over April - June 2008 young people from Highfields are learning skills in each of the art forms whilst drawing inspiration for their lyrics, music, and designs from various collections. This project is going to conclude with a performance evening from which the participants can take away a CD with their art work and final songs on.
PEDESTRIAN @ RIVERSIDE
From April 2008 until the end of June Pedestrian will be running a project with Riverside Business & Enterprise College, Leicester. The project will engage up to 55 young people to learn skills in Music Production, MCing, Street Dance, DJing, Film Production and Event Planning, culminating in a performance at the school where everyone involved can showcase their skills. Pedestrian is excited to get such a large and inclusive project going!
LEICESTER ARTS & MUSEUMS SERVICE
In March & April 2008 Pedestrian ran a graffiti project at the Coleman Dreams Centre alongside the Arts & Museums Service. Drawing inspiration from the collections at several museums and galleries in the city the group of young people came up with designs for two 15ft x 7ft walls. Over the course of several sessions young people learnt graffiti as an art form, and painted the walls with their design themselves.
Pedestrian and Positive Futures in Agarnook
We have almost completed a 24 week series of turntablism workshops in Agarnook funded by Positive Futures. The young people have learnt skills in scratching, beat matching and beat juggling and have been accredited for their learning, using our OCN accredited course. The guys will be performing in the DJ competition at our next event at the Shed in Leicester, with the chance to win some records!
Urban Music Mentors 2007
The Urban Music Mentors project supported by the Youth Opportunity Fund, gives young artists (16-19) the opportunity to experiance what it’s like to be a community musician, developing thier own artistic skills, while developing mentoring and communication skills to deliver music projects in the community.
As part of the project, the Urban Music Mentors delivered workshops in August at the Watershed youth centre, Upperton Road, Leicester.
A Video of the Urban Music Mentors in action is NOW ONLINE! Urban Music Mentors
School radio station
Last year Riversdie Business and Enterprise College started a radio
project with Creative Partnerships and Pedestrian as a partner. Throughout the year young people
were trained by Pedestrian tutors and prerecorded radio shows and had
a total of 3 ‘radio weeks’ in which shows were played every breaktime
and lunchtime around the school. They now have a fully equipped radio
station in the school, and a core team of presenters, producers,
management, and a marketing team whom are all fully trained and
running the station.
This year the core students will be responsible for training other
students, as they take ownership of the station. We are also
introducing a filming element this year, allowing the skills they have
learnt in the radio studio to be tranferred to teh production of some
short films about Riverside. Finally, a sculpting tutor will also be
working with the Design and Technology department to design and make a
sculpture by the end of the year.
Apex
At Apex in the city centre, Pedestrian worked with young people who have not engaged with school or college delivering a series of Turntablism, Street Dance and Graffiti workshops to help them develop new skills and self esteem. A group of young people were also accredited for their learning using our OCN accredited course in Turntablism. In 2008 we returned for a series of Graffiti workshops.