Projects
The Spark likes to get involved in 'out of festival' activity that will promote arts for local children, and create events for the festival too.
Games Time - local performers wanted
Games Time is a spectacular live outdoor stage show combining music, video, fireworks, professional dancers and 160 members of the local community. It will be showing throughout the East Midlands in 2012, in Loughborough, Northampton and Derby.
Déda Producing, in partnership with Charnwood Borough Council, Leicestershire County Council, Charnwood Arts, and The Spark Children's Arts Festival is looking for volunteers to be part of the cast for Games Time, which will perform in Loughborough as part of the festival in June 2012.
More information about taking part in Games Time.
Story writing competition 2012
This year's story-writing competition has now been launched and is open to any children aged 7-16 from Leicester city. The competition is again supported by the Schools Development Support Agency as part of the "Whatever it Takes" Reading Scheme. More information about this year's competition...
Click here to see the 2011 winners and the final book.
Pop-Up gallery project
The Pop-Up Gallery was an action research project, as part of The Mighty Creatives Creative Exchanges programme, which aimed to find answers to the question:
What is the best way to create and present a visual arts exhibition to children?
The project involved 3 teams of Young Curators from 3 schools who created an exhibition of their school‘s portraiture art works under the title “Portrait Palace".
Click here to find out more about the project.
Open Minded Play Spaces
The Spark and Leicester City Council have been working together to create two new playspaces this year, on Braunstone Park and Aylestone Meadows.
They are designed to be 'open-minded' spaces for children - stimulating imaginative play but also serving as community spaces for small scale events throughout the year.
Both spaces had their naming ceremonies in July. For more information please follow the links below:
Professional development courses
Each year during the festival The Spark brings many artists to Leicester who have long experience in creating live performance for children. Each year, we try to harnass some of that expertise to offer professional development opportunities for local arts practitioners.
Last year's CPD event was "Lighting the Fire". This brand new course brought together arts practitioners and educators working in nursery/playgroup settings to explore together the rich world of performances for the Early Years.
This year we will be offering more one off events before and during the festival, as part of our joint work with Curve as an Early Arts Pathfinders, and as part of the Leicester Early Arts Partnership. For more information please visit the Early Years page.
Photos: photofinale.co.uk
