TYPE OF WORK
Performance based multimedia sensory artwork.

TARGET GROUPS

• People with disabilities (sensory/learning disability/physician in the East Midlands, UK.
• People with severe access issues to the arts.

GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT
UK Australia, Western and Southern Europe

COMPANY POLICY
A company of international collaborating artists who work with a wide spectrum of people to create artworks primarily derived from sensory experience.

Drawing on the resources of the arts, the company seeks to adopt methods that will allow people of all abilities to work creatively on their own terms.

The company considers the physical and psychological barriers that obstruct people's creativity and resists simplistic or commercially dictated notions both of what is beautiful and of what is ugly or ordinary.

The company provides practical support enabling people to make artworks that are distinctively their own.

SCALE OF PROJECTS
Number of practitioners: 2-5
Number of participants: 10-15
Preparation time: 5-6
Contact time: Weekly basis over 6 months to 2 week residencies

PERMANENT STAFF
Isabel Jones, Artistic Director
Lisa Craddock, Company Manager
Emma Williams, Music Development
Julie Hood, Dance Development

Living Room Project (UK, 2002)
Aims: to train 10 dance workers to develop their artistic practice with people with disabilities and to learn how to collaborate effectively with care professionals who support their groups.

• To train 10 care professionals to know how to interact with artists and best develop the participants when supporting an arts session.
• To give groups an experience of developing relationships with artists long-term and within that experience to be exposed to the highest quality of interaction and artistic production.
• To give an experience of creating a quality art production and showing this to an audience.

Outcomes: Creation of a CD that included the voices and sounds of every participant.

• Creation of a film that included participants' faces and moments from their dances. These films were also set up as an installation in a gallery adjoining the theatre space.
• Participants performed their dances to a full capacity audience at a large theatre in Manchester.
• Participants received 15 weeks of experiential movement sessions.
• Staff and dance workers extended their skills in relationship to their groups and in collaborating with each other.
• Four of the 10 groups that were involved in this project are still meeting regularly a year on from the project.

Participants: 120

Partners: Dance initiative Greater Manchester (UK dance agency), social services through involvement of groups from day centres), education sector (through involvement of school groups).

Installation at Rosehill School
Young people on the spectrum, in collaboration with sound, visual and dance artists, will create an installation. The environment created will act as a performance space for the creators to use and encourage other young people to visit and be inspired. (Nottingham, UK, expected date of completion: March 2004)

Isabel Jones
38 Laurie Avenue
Forest Fields
Nottingham NG7 6PN

T/F +44 (0) 115 942 0706

E info@salamanda-tandem. org
W www.salamanda-tandem.org

“The content was delivered in a refreshing and enjoyable atmosphere allowing artists to contribute, share and express within a creative environment.”
DIGM staff, partners with Salamanda Tandem, on Living Room Project

“The company was very supportive, accommodating and refreshing. They have given me useful advice on how to approach different situations.”
Dance Worker, trainee on Living Room Project

“I feel our students benefited a lot from the project and it raised the profile of the abilities and skills of the students.”
Teacher, participating school, on Living Room Project

Return to top