ABOUT PARTICIPATE

Our Community Engagement Programme provides year-round opportunities for access to and participation in the arts for young people, older people, disadvantaged people and people from minority groupings including an Annual Ensemble Project in partnership with a wide range of Community groups, pushing the boundaries of what Arts Outreach can achieve. PARTICIPATE is fully aligned with the PFG and the TBUC initiative and is committed to demonstrating what can be achieved societally through arts interventions of the highest quality. 

PARTICIPATE is a lynchpin of Prime Cut Productions. For well over 12 years, it has afforded us the opportunity to work with and form ongoing relationships with people and communities we otherwise may not have, hear stories we would never have and to create work that has had multiple benefits for audiences and participants alike. It is a vital and integral part of our work and has also led to the development of ground-breaking internationally acclaimed theatre such as Removed.

A key aim of PARTICIPATE is to create a sustainable, creative environment that is participant led, while informed by long-term strategic partnership with the sectors we are working with. We intend to unequivocally prove the benefit of arts engagement on a societal level, in NI and internationally, through ongoing evaluation and research on the impact of our work on the communities and people we engage with. 

The impact on the people and communities we have engaged with has been highly positive including increased self-confidence, transferable employment skills, greater appreciation of diversity and active engagement with and expression of their own cultures and those of others. We fully believe in this work – the feedback and eagerness for participation over the   years has demonstrated the benefits it has had at an individual and societal level. We want to build on our already existing partnerships in the arts, health and social care and community, extending out to education and a variety of other sectors towards advocating for a deeper understanding of and greater support for participatory arts across our society.

ABOUT ENSEMBLE

At the heart of PARTICIPATE are the Ensemble Projects. Running for 8 years now, with support from Belfast City Council, Community Relations Council, The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation  and The NI Executive Office we have worked with approximately 2400 people from across Northern Ireland creating collaborative projects that explore thematically issues and subjects that are relevant to and resonate within our society.

It all started back in 2013, when as part of a three year strategic planning exercise, we started to look at the way we approached our Community Engagement work. Prior to this, our work in this area tended to focus on direct engagement with schools and community groups regarding our live productions and an annual special production project supported through Belfast City Council’s Development and Outreach Fund. Both of these strands of work were incredibly successful, allowing us to create award-winning projects like Demeter: Still Life Still and The Baths as well as opening up opportunities for audiences to engage in a very clear and personal way with the casts and creatives of each production. We felt however, that there was something more we could be doing, or maybe it was that we just needed to do something differently.

A key characteristic of the Special Outreach Projects was that the subject matter was originated in the company – this made necessary by the funding criteria of the time. We started to wonder if were missing something. That if we were describing our work as Community Engagement then surely there should be as much ownership from the communities we work with, in terms of what the projects were about. Who was in a better position to say what was relevant and meaningful, than the people whose lives were actually impacted by these issues?

And so we approached a funder and explained how we wanted to approach some groups and create a small workshop project. We explained at this point we did not know who these groups were, what the workshops might explore, what the end result would be. We weren’t sure what the outcomes would be and if in fact there would be any outputs. What we could guarantee was that we would bring together 10 community groups from across Belfast; we would ensure there was a cross-community and intergenerational aspect providing insight into different communities across Belfast as well as different generations within each community and we would bring the skills set of Prime Cut to the project. There would have been many funders who would have politely smiled and firmly said no to the concept. Not so Belfast City Council’s Tourism Culture and Arts Dept who gave us seed funding and so an amazing story began.

Since then, we have delivered workshops to over 70 groups across Northern Ireland. From an initial 4 workshop project to 10 groups, culminating in a short film, Ensemble has developed into an annual project, supported by a variety of funders, that has explored a wide variety of themes including age (both youth and older people), urban culture, disability, colour, race, tradition culminating in filmed and live performances across Belfast and beyond. It has allowed us to create fantastic, ongoing and impactful relationships with a wide range of community groups and charities across Northern Ireland. It has resulted in the development and delivery of several Legacy Projects including a series of short films exploring shared living space, the Re-Vision Projects that work with people living with dementia, their families and carers and our award-winning production, critically acclaimed production of Removed, developed in direct response to participant feedback in the 2015-16 Ensemble.  

Participant Groups include:

An Culturlann,  An Droichead, Armoy Youth Club, Atlas Women’s Group, Barnardos NI, Bawnmore Community Association, Belfast Interface Project, Bruce House, Bytes, Clanmil Housing, Carrick Hill Community Centre, Cliftonville Integrated Primary School, Community Relations Forum, Cookstown Youth Club, Dee St Community Centre, Decorum NI, East Belfast Initiative,  East Belfast Men’s Group, East Belfast Mission, East Belfast Women’s Group, East Belfast Partnership, Falls Women’s Centre, Farset Centre,  Glen Community Centre, Glen Parent and Youth Club, Grays Court,  Greater Shankhill United Youth Project, Greenway Women’s Centre,  HERe NI,  Hammer Youth Club, Harbour Lights Women’s Group, Harmony Court, Homeless Project Shankill, Hosford House, Include Youth, The Indian Community Centre, Inner East Youth, Inverary Community Centre, John Vianney Seniors Group,  John Vianney Youth Group, The KNIGHTS Group,  Knocknagoney Community Centre, LORAG, LORAG Cohesion Group, Markets Community Centre, Millisle Health and Wellbeing,  Mountcollyer Youth Club, Mullan Mews,  New Lodge Arts,  North Belfast Partnership, Orchardville Society,  Pitt Park Walkway, Quaker’s Service,  Rathbone, Rathcoole Youth Club, Rathenraw Youth Club,  Sailortown Men’s Group, Senior Citizens Forum, Short Strand Community Centre, South Belfast Partnership, Springboard Opps, Springfield Charitable Association, Stage Beyond, Sydenham Court, St Therese De Lisieux Primary School, Tigers Bay Men’s Group, VOYPIC, West Belfast Partnership, Whiterock Community Centre.

Since 2018 Ensemble has been supported through The Executive Office’s Central Good Relations Fund and has actively been focused on promoting good relations through arts engagement with communities across Belfast and beyond. In 2020, as a result of the Covid19 Pandemic, Ensemble for the first time went digital and this site is the Project Showcase for this year. Special gratitude must go to both our participants and funders who in spite of the challenges, delays and ongoing changes this year has brought, stuck with us, believed in and committed to the project. And huge thanks to our amazing team of facilitators, whose work for and commitment to the project has been second to none. We hope that next year we can start to do this all Live again, but we will continue to embrace the digital evolution this year has brought and we hope that this is just the start of an ongoing, growing website for us all.

And in the words of some of our participants over the years:

"It was very powerful and really worth doing. Take it up to Stormont and show it to them. I think because of the way we have grown up over the years everything has to be in secrecy and you cant get over that so it was really empowering to be able to talk about what we’ve been through."
"Very creative and progress was made. Got us out of our comfort zone. Also different ways of communication. "
“I have been talking for a long time about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in relation to ex – service people and their families. I really thought it only affected them in the main. To hear stories from other groups where young people are suffering from it, from those that have no idea about the Troubles was shocking and really opened my eyes.”
“I have been talking for a long time about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in relation to ex – service people and their families. I really thought it only affected them in the main. To hear stories from other groups where young people are suffering from it, from those that have no idea about the Troubles was shocking and really opened my eyes.”
"The young people came to a unanimous conclusion that the workshops provided them with more confidence and higher self-esteem witch they have carried on into their everyday lives."
"The project was the best one I’ve been involved in. "
"It definitely [made me feel more connected to my community] because that evening reminded you of the issues that the whole community experienced and some of the stories were really heart breaking actually."
“It was amazing because we were part of a show where we were with people from different backgrounds and the way it was produced meant that we didn’t stand out.. “
“Very powerful way to convey that people are not at ease, people were on edge and it resonates with any of us and our experiences. It worked really well”
"Thank you for this, it is absolutely fantastic, so delighted with it, and that combined with the fact you had such little time to develop this entire thing, it is commendable! Stephen made a comment this morning that out of all the PCSP productions he has done or been involved in, this is the best. "
"The workshops themselves have been fantastic and were well attend every week by the girls involved. Throughout the different workshops we were able to see the girls really mature and get very much involved in the drama aspect wanting every week for the workshops to last longer. "