Free online Arts Award support sessions are fast approaching, brought to you by Culture Bridge North East and The Customs House.

Discover and Explore, Wednesday 19 May 2021, 11.30 – 13.00

Trainers Jane Gray and Fiona Martin will take you through a Discover and Explore Arts Award Refresher, which is suitable for any existing advisers; whether you’ve had a break in your delivery or if you’ve never worked in these Awards. 

There will be time spent on both levels, as well as opportunities to ask questions and to gain confidence to re-start your Discover and Explore programmes.

Bronze and Silver, Wednesday 16 June 2021, 11.30 – 13.00

This session is suitable for existing Bronze and Silver advisers and will be delivered by trainers, Jane Gray and Fiona Martin. 

Participants will be taken through the specifics of Bronze and Silver Arts Award, and to have an opportunity to ask questions, and clarify understanding to help advisers to increase their confidence around delivering Bronze and Silver Arts Awards.

Gold, Wednesday 14 July 2021, 11.30 – 13.00

This session is an introduction to Gold Arts Award, and is delivered by Gold Trainer, Jane Gray and supported by Fiona Martin, from The Customs House. It will be an opportunity to find out how Gold Arts Award might be the right next step in your work with young people to support them to develop their artistic talents and leadership expertise.

Pink Collar Gallery & Las Lluministas have presented the RE-IMAGINE open call which opens on Friday 30th April (today) and closes on Friday 11th June 2021 with application details at www.pink-collargallery.com

The call out invites artists who identify as women and as feminists to create activist artwork around the theme of how femicide is portrayed in mass media. The work will be displayed online in parallel at Pink-Collar Gallery and Las Iluministas Gallery. Within this open call, they will select 5 Mexico-based artists and 5 UK-based artists to develop their online work into pieces of public art, which will be displayed in Mexico and the UK respectively. The process of creating and displaying these ten pieces of public art will be filmed by the artists themselves, creating ten short videos to exhibit.

The fantastic Cabinet of Curiosity have secured support from Arts Council England and Creative Darlington to develop a Grand Constructions project in Darlington. Watch their short video and download and print one of their designs onto card, and with a pair of scissors, and some sticky stuff, you’ll have all you need to create your own model of Darlington’s fabulous Town Clock.

The D Project Dance Company is looking to appoint new Board Trustees. After many successful years the company is in the process of transitioning to a Company Limited by Guarantee and is looking for new board trustees to provide advice, support and share their experience to help take the organisation into its next stage of development.

This is/these are a volunteer position/s without renumeration.

The Roles

In the first instance we are seeking people with experience at board or senior level in one or more of the following areas:

Finance | Accounting | Legal and Governance | Human Resources

Those with experience of charity and fundraising would also be particularly welcomed as well as those with dance/arts knowledge or experience being desirable.

A further specification and information about the roles can be obtained by visiting www.thedproject.co.uk/news

To apply for a role please send an expression of interest and current CV to info@thedproject.co.uk.

Deadline for submissions is 12pm Friday 26th March 2021.

Along with the University of Sunderland, Northern Film + Media/ Tees Valley Screen are delighted to be presenting a series of six online webinars “In Conversation with Lord Puttnam” supported by Pinewood Group.

The series begins with

Golden Rules – Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 30! with Lee Hall – Friday 12th March – 10am – 11.30am

Following this are:

The Production Business – How to finance and produce successful content with David Parfitt Monday 15th March – 2pm – 3.30pm

How Technology has Changed Storytelling with Sarah Gavron – Monday 12th April – 2pm – 3.30pm

The Great British Skills Shortage – Where the jobs are with Iain Smith – Friday 23rd April 10am – 11.30am

Producing Content in an Era of Fake News – The growing importance of factual and documentary makers John Battsek – Friday 30th April- 10am – 11.30am

And finally, date and time tbc    The Films of Ridley Scott – with Ridley Scott.

The first event is available to book here https://lordputtnamgoldenrules.eventbrite.co.uk, with further information about the events at https://northernmedia.org/in-conversation-with-lord-puttnam/.

Priority places will be given to those living in the north east and students and alumni from University of Sunderland.

Northern Film + Media/Tees Valley Screen have contacted Creative Darlington recently to advise of a *NEW* Video Journalism Trainee Placement Scheme they are launching in partnership with The Guardian. 

Applications are open to select a talented storyteller from the Tees Valley region who will take part in a paid, 12 week part time training programme and join a specialist video unit. The candidate will receiving training from a local mentor alongside video producers and journalists at the Guardian and will create a short documentary film for their collaborative community video project Made in Britain.

The scheme has arisen to tackle some of the key barriers to entry in the British media in which the production processes and routes to participation have become increasingly inaccessible. Made in Britain is an attempt to improve and deepen the representation of underrepresented communities, empowering those with a knack and a passion for storytelling to tell a story that matters to them and produce top quality video journalism.

All of the key info can be found here: https://northernmedia.org/project/made-in-britain/about-made-in-britain/ 

Interested candidates can watch a one hour webinar about Video Journalism at the Guardian here: https://northernmedia.org/intro-to-docs-video-journalism-with-the-guardian/

Applications for the Video Journalism Trainee Placement Scheme are OPEN NOW until 1 March 2021.

Northern Film & Media/Tees Valley Screen are also hiring a Documentary Filmmaking Mentor to work with them on this scheme. Applications for the role close on 22 February 2021.

Please do not hesitate to get in contact with Jen Corcoran, 07970 917 437, if you would like some more information on the scheme. Interested candidates can also contact MIB@northernmedia.org  for support with their application.

Applications can be made in writing or by video.

Eden Arts are advising creatives of their £12,000 commission fund (and other opportunities they are working on for the #66 region – from west coast Cumbria to east coast at Teesmouth via Carlisle and Durham, the districts connected loosely by the A66).  

The programme includes Darlington and Eden Arts are keen to work with artists, writers, makers, creatives, podcasters. filmmakers, animators, illustrators, graphic designers, gamers, painters, poets and many more. You can find out more about aims of The 66 programme here.

To find out more about the commission fund just register at https://edenarts.typeform.com/to/QRcXKzQA (and do a quick survey on how COVID has made an impact on your practice) to receive updates on new commissions and opportunities from them and others.

Hannabiell Saunders and Midnight Blue Collective delivered 5 performances on Tuesday 22nd December 2020 and 5 more on Wednesday 23 December 2020, outdoors in Lifeline service locations across the Borough. Performances were supported by Creative Darlington and sought to bring cheer to families with upbeat Christmas carols fused with African and Latin rhythm, to safely bring live music to the doorsteps of people who might otherwise have limited opportunities to enjoy live music, and to support musicians and freelancers during these difficult times.

This programme attracted many positive comments, two of which are shown below:

“Thank you so very very much you were fantastic.  Everyone really loved listening to your music in the sunshine, made us all feel a little more Christmassy.”

“What an excellent treat for the tenants today from Hannabiell and her band, there were absolutely swinging, and all tenants have enjoyed it so much great to see so many dancing and watching it was great certainly upped everyone’s spirits.”

Darlington community interest company Tracks are starting off 2021 with some good news. They’ve been awarded just under £15k to run a series of online events between January and April 2021 by Arts Council England, and Creative Darlington is also supporting the Back on Track programme in 2021, following Tracks successful promotion of fantastic online programmes, including Darlo@Home and Hark! The Sound of Christmas last year.

Throughout 2020 Tracks took their distinctive brand of music events online with a series of performances, many drawing thousands of viewers and audiences from around the world. The new funding for“Back On Track” will support an array of activities and performances that will appeal to a wide range of audiences.

“This funding is so important to Tracks, it means that we are able to continue creating diverse, exciting, quality online events and workshops to give people missing the creative arts in the real world, a chance to engage and discover something new. It also means that we can continue to reach out to our musical community with offers of paid work, giving them some much needed support and opportunities in such uncertain times”

Rob Irish co-founder of Tracks.

Tracks project BIG Little Gigs has been running in Darlington for the last five years bringing fun live music events to a family friendly audience. As part of the funding there will be two online BIG Little Gigs events, the first will feature Leeds based Back Chat Brass plus a musical craft session with host Sarah Wilson.

Hark! The Sound of Stories will also return. These events are a celebration of music and the written word and how they so often inspire each other. During the 2020 restrictions Tracks produced two Hark events that received rave reviews. The next event will premiere online on Sunday 31st January at 7pm and there will be a writers workshop held during the afternoon.

Noisy Daughters is a project supporting women and trans women in music and will be running a series of four free online workshops covering a variety of topics within the music industry. The first of these will feature Darlington vocal coach Claire Willmer speaking about how to look after your voice as a live performer. She will be teaching warm ups, warm downs and sharing other tricks of the trade. Other workshop leaders include Liz Corney of The Cornshed Sisters and Field Music, Francoise Harvey, award winning published author and musician, and local rising star Jodie Nicholson discussing how to promote your music online. The first of the four workshops will run on Saturday 23rd January at 2pm .

There will be some live music hip-hop cyphers being created and premiered too. The films will be hosted by Rianne Thompson from BBC Introducing and will feature the cream of the North East hip-hop scene including artists from Darlington’s own hip-hop label Legitimate Anarchy.

For more details of all of the events and workshops please head to​ ​www.tracksdarlington.co.uk​ and please note there are limited spaces on all of the workshops so places must be booked in advance.

A big thank you to Dr. Hannabiell Sanders (Artistic, Programming Director) and Yilis del Suriel and the other musicians in the band and to Darlington’s Lifeline Services for their work bringing live music safely to different sites in Darlington borough between Tuesday 22nd and Wednesday 23rd December 2020.

Darlington Borough Council events team worked with Harambee Pasadia earlier in the year to bring Darlington Drum Festival to the Town Centre, and their festive tour brought drum and brass interpretations of traditional tunes and original music into the earshot of many people across the Borough. Toes were tapping and hands were clapping, in Darlington, Hurworth and Middleton St. George, despite the somewhat wintry weather.

Creative Darlington funded the tour as part of our work to champion cultural engagement by supporting events, festivals and targeted programmes.