Charity, Dorset | Posted on April 19th, 2022 | return to news
Funding of £112,000 for groups to organise art-related jubilee events
A total of 16 groups across Dorset are receiving funding to enable them to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June.
Dorset Community Foundation has awarded grants totalling more than £112,000 to 16 music, dance, artwork, theatre and poetry projects to enable them to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in June.
The foundation has used Arts Council England funding, bolstered by a donation from manufacturing company Superior Seals, to fund the projects. It is one of the network of UK community foundations supporting the Lets Create Jubilee Fund, a £5 million programme to develop creative and cultural activities as part of the celebrations.
Among the successful recipients is The Power House in Poole, which will use a £10,000 grant for a series of events in the run-up to, and during, the jubilee celebrations involving hundreds of school pupils and the wider community. It will work with Hamworthy Park Junior School and Twin Sails School pupils to create seven mosaics portraying decades in the Queen’s life to be displayed at the schools.
Pupils from Longfleet School will work with ceramic artists from The Clayshack in Poole to create jubilee globes and artist Amanda Waite will collaborate with 20 GCSE art students from Hamworthy and Poole secondary schools to create a mosaic-style portrait of the Queen.
The group will work with arts charity CoCreate on a jubilee street party for schools on 25 May which will feature drama and song, as well as a Be A Queen throne for selfies, which will then be displayed at the Poole Lighthouse.
The Power House will also be taking part in Poole’s jubilee celebrations with a pop-up gazebo in the High Street featuring music, art and drama.
Project manager, Alix Digby-West, said: “This is a real opportunity to bring everyone together for a once-in-a-lifetime event and create some fantastic artwork.”
BPC Indian Association and Music Lovers Bollywood will use £5,000 funding towards a day of dance, food and music for members of the county’s South Asian population – and the wider community.
Ramesh Lal, chairman of Music Lovers Bollywood, said the event will be the first chance since the pandemic to bring the community together. “We consider it a good omen and an honour to be able to participate in the jubilee celebrations. The toast will be to the Queen but with the added colour and splendour of Bollywood.”
The event, at the Bournemouth Hilton on 25 June, will feature workshops, poetry and traditional and Bollywood-style dancing.
Townsend Community Association in Bournemouth will use a £3,400 grant to organise dance workshops for children aged seven to 11 with Dance For All in June, to culminate in a dance performance to mark the jubilee.
Staff member, Ambarene Ibrar, said the project could lead to regular dance lessons and performances for the young people from low income families on the estate. “We are also teaming up with Arts By The Sea who helped us partner up with Dance For All and they are also interested in working with our community in the future so this is a perfect event to get started and could really benefit the community in the long term,” she said.
Borough Harmony Centre, which provides support for adults with mental health difficulties, has been awarded £2,980 to work with Bridport Arts Centre and run a series of writing and story-telling workshops with artists to allow members to tell their stories through drama, poetry and artwork.
The project will culminate in a performance on a specially constructed sensory stage at the arts centre as part of its jubilee celebrations.
Stalbridge History Society has been given £5,000 to bring the whole town together for a celebration that will include a community jubilee lunch on 12 June. It will be preceded by a procession featuring town groups to the church for a celebration service and then on the playing fields for a lunch.
The day before, the high street will host a street festival with music, family entertainment and food.
In the run-up, community workshops will make decorations and floral displays to add colour to the high street.
Island Community Action on Portland has been awarded £9,750 to run, with arts group b-side, a community project involving residents decorating hundreds of ceramic cups, plates, jugs and bowls with photographs that mean something to them – lost loved ones, the homes they grew up in or the landscape of the island.
The pictures will be digitally transferred to the ceramics, which will then form part of displays around the community over the course of the jubilee.
Dorset Community Foundation director, Grant Robson, said: “We have been blown away by the variety and creativity of the projects that have come forward. Not only will they showcase the fantastic depth of artistic talent in Dorset but they will bring together communities for celebrations that will make memories that last.
“We are very proud to have brought this money into Dorset from Arts Council England, which has used its National Lottery funding for this programme. It is very gratifying that we are seen as the most effective way of bringing this money into the community because of our close relationship with the grass roots groups here.
“And of course we are incredibly thankful to Superior Seals for its wonderful support in enabling us to find as many projects as possible.”
Other groups awarded funds are Coda Music Trust in Christchurch (£7,700); Recreate Dorset (£10,000); Vita Nova, Boscombe (£10,000); ARCH in Canford Heath (£750); The Arts Development Company, Sturminster Newton (£9,419.50); Purbeck Art Weeks Festival (£1,895); The Mowlem Institute Charity (£9,995); Friends of the Lyric Theatre Bridport (£5084.54); The Burrough Harmony Centre Bridport (£2980) ; AsOne Theatre Company (£6,925); Broadwindsor Fun Group (£5,000) and Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust (£7143).
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