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There is now a new seasonal episode online for every month until October! Listen to them all at once or subscribe so that you can be reminded as each new date comes around. It’s not too late to discover why Easter is actually Eostre. Then there’s Pinch Bum Day, Midsummer, St Swithun’s & Lammas, all told with January’s usual droll wit and March’s style & panache!
If you’ve somehow missed earlier episodes, hurry, hurry to discover what all the fuss is about!
We recently spoke at the the Healthy Communities, Healthy Places conference in Dorset. We were invited to talk about Roots and Roots Replanted and our approach to making theatre that reflects the community we’re working with and engages them in the themes of our work which often result in healthy lifestyle choices.
We put some slides together and they’re full of such lovely pictures and gorgeous words from our fans, that I thought I’d share them with you.
We also showed our new film and talked a lot about the power of the physical experience in helping inspire people to take action. Kilter’s work is never preachy, but it’s hands on, direct and intimate style really connects with people and creates a powerful bond between the performer and the audience.
In the past, innovation and creativity has often have often been a nnegative part of our sustainability conundrum generating more ‘stuff’ to fuel ‘use and check’ lifestyles, creating novely for its own sake. But today creatives are becoming part of the solution.
Our friends at Forum for the Future have been doing some amazing work looking into how the creative industries can lead the way to a sustainable future. The following blog, written by Fiona Bennie, will fill you in and give you links to some interesting further reading.
The first part of the creative industries project, commissioned by the CIKTN, enabled us to get an overview of who is proactively working on sustainability challenges across the UK creative industries – as well as a few international examples.
We highlighted three key areas of activity:
The findings were encouraging, with pockets of interest, initiatives and projects specifically aimed to shift UK consumers and businesses towards sustainable practices and lifestyles. This is all happening via creative approaches, methods and influence – through architects, designers, musicians, filmmakers, actors, artists, theatres and more.
Though encouraging, we and many across the industries felt the combined initiatives are simply not enough compared to the challenges we face. It’s a good and inspiring start, but there’s still a long way to go and many more to get on board. The creative industries are lagging behind the ambitions of big businesses which buy their services. They need to be doing more to influence those they inspire – speaking out about the sustainability issues that are shaping our world and hogging the global headlines.
So what’s happened? Have creatives lost their artistic flare for influence and outspokenness? With so much brilliant content built around the injustices of war, famine and inequality, to name but a few, where is the creative uprising on climate change? Who is inspiring their fans to live a fairer, greener life that enhances and doesn’t degrade our beautiful natural world? A few creative folk in the UK are working tirelessly on this, but not nearly enough of them.
We are absolutely convinced that we need as much creative input as possible to ensure that the growing low-carbon, sustainable lifestyle options and business practices are accessible. These approaches need to engage and be desirable – consumers will only change their behaviour if creatives use their immensely powerful and inspirational work to inform and influence them.
Instead of waiting for the regulations and legislations which will push us into lifestyle and business choices that may well be less desirable, the creative industries can help this shift happen voluntarily. Their job is to make the green/fair/low-carbon/healthy option the one everyone wants to choose.
With all this in mind, we’ve pulled together a set of practical opportunities and resources, as well as some provocations for creative businesses, policy makers and big businesses buying creative services – for them all to consider their role in enabling the shift to sustainability thinking. This is a starting point for creatives to get on the path to achieving a sustainable future – we address future-proofing the industries, skilling up creative practitioners and ultimately aim to enable them to drum-up sustainable business. In short, a quick fire toolkit to enable the industries and its business and policy stakeholders to help create the sustainable future the UK so urgently needs.
Follow this link for more info on the project, to see which creatives are leading the way and to download the toolkit.
To get in touch email Fiona at f.bennie@forumforthefuture.org
This blog was orginally posted on the Forum website on the 1st March 2011.
Last week saw the inaugural Climate Week Awards and we’re chuffed to see that they had a section for the Best Artistic Response.
Climate Week is a national occasion that aims to ‘shine a spotlight on the many positive steps already being taken in workplaces and communities across Britain.’
Kilter narrowly missed out on being a finalist but we’re thrilled to see that so many other artists are tackling this massive topic with energy, creativity and wit.
So, who did win?
WINNER: Red Redemption – Fate of the World
The computer game Fate of the World requires you to manage the earth’s food, water, energy and forests, while dealing with a growing population and threats from floods and extreme weather. Red Redemption raised £1 million for this follow-up to their BBC Climate Challenge.
You can see the other three finalists here. They included Devon artist Marcus Vergette’s poignant warning on climate change with a permanent installation of 12 giant bells at high tide points around the UK, and The Contingency Plan, a double bill of plays that explore the private and public cost of climate change.
The winners were selected by a judging panel which included Lord Nicholas Stern, Met Office Chief Scientist Julia Slingo, environmentalist Tony Juniper, author Ian McEwan and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s climate advisor, Terry Tamminen.
Well done all! Let’s hope Climate Week is on again next year and that Kilter can be a winner!
You’d have had to have your head in the sand to have missed the complete outrage griping the country over the cuts the Government are making at the moment. The arts sector is being particularly hard hit – with the Film Council cut, the Arts Council budget being sliced by £100M and even local councils cutting their arts funding by 100%, it’s not a great time to be an artist.
Our work is rarely understood or valued and the fact that for every £1 the Government invests in the arts, the UK economy gets £2 in return seems to have been missed by those in charge.
There is a lot going on at the moment and a lot of people are voicing their concerns. Over 100 of Britain’s leading artists lent their names to an open letter to the Guardian warning that government cuts risk destroying the country’s “remarkable and fertile landscape of culture and creativity”.
If you want to show how you feel about the cuts to the arts, or anything else that is affecting you in the Spending Review, then come along to the TUC backed March for the Alternative on the 26th March in London. The march will gather on Victoria Embankment and form up between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges from 11am.
If you can’t make it, feel free to email claire@kiltertheatre.org and she’ll march in your name. Witty ideas for placards gratefully recieved! There’s lots you can do if you can’t come. Spread the word and sign up to other anti-cuts petitions.
Thanks, and I hope to see you there.