Residencies

22 – 25 March 2022 Planning visit, Pristina, Kosovo

20 – 28 April 2022 Pristina Kosovo

17 – 25 June 2022 Portland, Dorset, UK

photographs by Robert Golden - during the residency in Portland

PARTNERS

Termokiss, Pristina, Kosovo

Beats Across Borders, Copenhagen, Denmark

b-side, Portland, Dorset UK

Opera Circus, Beridport, Dorset UK.

This is our last UK led Erasmus + funded youth arts programme. The Complete Freedom of Truth, which was established and led by Opera Circus, a UK performing arts organisation, grew from seeds planted with a group of young artists in Srebrenica in 2008.  The loss of Erasmus + and the freedom it gave to travel, the educational opportunities and work in the EU for British young people is a tragedy and driven by an ideological right wing government that is currently in power in the UK.  We alongside many others will continue to fight to rejoin Erasmus and other social, community, cultural and educational programmes offered by the EU.

After two years of postponement due to the Covid Pandemic, Opera Circus found itself running an Erasmus + funded event every month between March and August 2022, except for May, which was the final Izazov!, Changing the Story event in Sarajevo, part funded by Leeds and London South Bank Universities.

In 2022, Opera Circus for the first time worked with an Italian led youth mobility project called Take P-Art with Centro Studi Sereno Regis in Torino, Italy; a study visit to Bridport Dorset, a training programme in Torre Pellice a small town near Torino with a final youth exchange in Bratunac and Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina – more on this process later.

This TCFT programme of work was relatively small compared to some of our larger youth residencies in the past but with funding running out in the UK Erasmus + pot we knew that to try for a larger grant than the under €60,000 available, would end in failure. The UK National Agencies had spent the majority of the funds earlier in the final year, due to the concerns about Brexit, making it inevitable that larger applications wouldn’t succeed.

Three new partners worked with Opera Circus, b-side the cultural arts organisation on the Island of Portland in Dorset, UK, Termokiss, the youth cooperative in Pristina, Kosovo and Beats Across Borders, a Danish music organisation working to develop professionalism with young musicians through music production and design. 

There was an Advanced Planning Visit (APV) in March 2022, a short two days of exploration with Termokiss in their impressive building, planning on how we might work together. This was followed by an 8 day residency in April 2022 hosted by Termokiss in Pristina and an 8 day residency, hosted by b-side, on the island of Portland in Dorset in June 2022.

Termokiss is a youth cooperative founded in 2016 and based in an old disused power station about 10 minutes walk from the centre of Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo. The many young people who have run this organisation, have done an impressive job, with their principles*, social responsibility and their political activism working towards a more inclusive society, particularly with the LGBTQI community. As a post war country, and one still unrecognised by the international community, with continual political unrest, there are many restrictions on their lives including the freedom to travel. We were hosted at all times with great care and generosity. 

photographs by Robert Golden - during the residency in Pristina

There were challenges for all of us, working in a new city for the first time, problems of alternative spaces, timetabling, lack of time keeping and the emotional surges that are inevitable within a demanding programme, in a new environment and with over 40 young people, artists, youth workers and project managers  being in a large group for the first time in two years, post covid.

Music production training, song writing and singing, mental health and well being awareness, developing community gardens, exploring parkour in the community, spoken word evenings, contemporary dance, reflections on activism and power, the importance of eating and cooking together, and discussions and presentations on feminism and cultural appropriateness. The University of Pristina also provided VR equipment for us to learn about their virtual Museum and School Houses project during the 1990’s war in Kosovo.

Thanks to the UPG team for their brilliant Parkour workshops joined by two participants from Beats Across Borders, one highly skilled in Parkour and the other in contemporary dance; thanks also to UPG as well for cleaning the work space every morning with such generosity and professionalism, the latter as always.

This was the first residency we had led since 2019, before Covid, and after the two year postponement of most of this work. We were aware through research and reporting how damaging the Pandemic had been, in particular for children and young people. There are many statistics that reveal just how they have been affected by the isolation, the loss of education, lack of university experiences, friends, opportunities and even deaths.  The effects of this, both real and assumed, were evident and we hope that the work we did together across the summer was an encouragement, and solace, to the sense of disquiet and loss, sometimes overwhelming, that people felt. 

photographs by Robert Golden - during the residency in Portland

The second residency was on the Island of Portland in Dorset, UK. Portland is an unusual place that celebrates its “weirdness” in festivals, events and parades and has a warmth, beauty and wildness that belies the social deprivation.

We had chosen Refugee Week as a time to explore our relationship with others and to support and welcome young refugees within the work we do together.

Due to the support of many generous funders and the incredible efforts of our crowdfunding team, we were able to invite an extra 20 young people to participate. Danish, Kosovan and British from the Erasmus partners and young people from Albania, Syria, Ukraine, Italy, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. For 8 days we formed the world as we would wish it to be.

Samantha Knights QC

Samantha Knights Qc was invited to speak to us on World Refugee Day about her work on slavery, sex trafficking and asylum, joined by Sally Watkins, co-Artistic Director of b-side who had been working with Counterpoint Arts and the issues of asylum and migration.

b-side provided an introduction to the island with guided foraging and peace walks, a discussion on common land and regenerative farming and a celebratory supper. The week was filled with music, poetry, parkour and conversations which due to the broad cultural mixture of people eating, living and working together, proved to be far reaching and life changing for some.

On the penultimate day the Emerging Ensemble from Prodigal UPG performed On the Strandline, a deeply moving performance about climate change.

The sharing of work continued with a screening of the short film A Snapshot directed by John Clark. The film is a short psychological drama about an aspiring autistic photographer. The main role was taken by Josh Ward, a young actor, also with autism, who has been part of TCFT for many years, as well as working and studying with other local and national organisations including the National Youth Theatre, Graeae and Diverse City.

Showing the film was very important and with Josh there with us many questions were asked and the effect on the audience was powerful, in some cases creating deep emotional responses relating to other’s personal experiences.

The departure day was anything but calm with the national rail strike and many flights cancelled but we all coped surprisingly well and with great kindness to each other.

With thanks to:

Prodigal/UPG – Alister O’Loughlin and Miranda Henderson, Zangi, Robert Golden, Rosie Russell, Darren Abrahams, Mikael Hegelund Martinsen, David Kolby Ceesay, Daniel Uweis, Shaniqua Benjamin, Molly Scarborough, Zoe Cochrane, Grese Lahu, Linda Mustafa, Redi Asabella, Martha Court, Endrit Tasholli, Miranda Mehmeti, Edonis Hashani, Blendi Bytiqi, Mike Deadman, Alexandra Whittall, Tim Merrifield, Emma Murgatroyd, Francesco Pipparelli, Bobby Searle, Sally Watkins, Rocca Holly Nambi, Rouland Liiv, Jonathan Scott, Gina Bolt, Amanda Downes, Lisa Osborn, Josh Ward, Marie Seholt, Sebastian Hjuler Jespersen, Adam Laugesen, Kim Wilcocks, Act for Change, KRAN, British Red Cross and many, many others.

If you click on the names of the main Erasmus partners, it will take you to their web sites or social media pages. 

If you click on The Book, you can find the creative evaluations and comments from many of the young people and artists who participated – a work in progress..

We will upload the final Erasmus + report on this page.

not the end

This is not the end of TCFT.  It will re-emerge, possibly in a different form. Over 2000 young people, artists, teachers, project managers and others have taken part over the last 14 years and the work lives on in their aspirations and activism and in all the learning we have all absorbed.  One question we are asking ourselves, is TCFT something you can teach? We are considering a few weeks in 2023 working with an intergenerational group of professional artists to explore this through art – does TCFT become a book, a film, a performance, a philosophy, a series of stories or a training programme…or???.  More news on this as we explore the ideas and funding.

There will be an overall appraisal of TCFT on the Opera Circus web site when it is launched this Autumn and Spring.

Dr. Henry Redwood, with 6 TCFT participants from Spain, Italy, Ukraine and the UK, is developing a period of research for TCFT.  We are looking at a number of possible funding sources at the moment.

Robert Golden, the film maker and photographer who has worked with Opera Circus since it began in 1991, is making a documentary from the interviews of 35 young people whom he met and worked with across the summer.  It will be shared widely after everyone involved has approved their voices in the penultimate edit.

And what happened after

There are new stories to be shared, the beginnings of a youth council on Portland with support from a graduate in Kosovo who has been a Youth Rights Ambassador for UNICEF since she was 14; a return to Srebrenica of Zangi to record a song written this summer, new connections, new friendships, Lisa Glybchenko’s film on Genocide released with music by David Kolby Ceesay; a young asylum seekers who took part on Portland has been offered a Sanctuary Scholarship and has started studying at Bristol University; the return of Beats across Borders to Portland for their September festival with Zoe Cochrane and Bruno Chavez, Robert Golden’s new film, see above; a small environmental arts project testing the river Drina for pollution with the OSCE in Bratunac; the plan to research the effect of TCFT with Dr. Henry Redwood and how to continue the work without Erasmus +, Josh’s film won the Best UK and International Prize at Wigan and Leigh Film Festival, Opera Circus started working with an Italian Erasmus intern for 3 months from September 2022; more to add here as we gather the stories.

Do you have stories and new projects to share?

We would like to thank so many

for their support, interest and generosity.

Portland

The b-side Team / Samantha Knights QC / The Royal Manor Theatre / Drop In Youth Centre / Island Community Action /

Quiddles Café / Portland Town Council / Miss Piggy’s Pantry and Stavros / Dorset Vehicle Rentals / Wobbly Cottage Bakers

Kosovo

The Termokiss team / Dr. Henry Redwood, Kings College (and previously London South Bank University) /

Dr Nita Luci and Dr. Linda Guisa, University of Pristina / Nita Qena, British Council, Kosovo (now closed)

Violeta Berisha, Head of Office for Reintegration

And to our funders:

Erasmus +

Arts Council England

Awards for All

Dorset Council

Dorset Performing Arts Fund

Dorset Community Foundation

Crowdfunder and everyone who contributed so generously

Alice Ellen Cooper Dean Charitable Trust

Weymouth Town Council

View past information page here