Creative consultation with young people in Lancashire

MPA worked with two groups of young people, one in Accrington and one in Burnley The groups had four sessions each

This involved:• One cultural visit• Two sessions with Creative

Practitioners• Five focus group sessions

Methodology

Participants chose an intervention to make and reflect on (i.e. ‘taking part’ and ‘being in the audience’)

Focus groups used open questioning, brainstorm and mapping activities, and were digitally recorded

Audio was transcribed

Transcribed text was coded using NVivo 8 qualitative data analysis software

Using NVivo the following codes or categories were identified in the discussion

Young people felt age was relevant

Yeah, he spoke to us like adults we said. He spoke to us like we were people so we could make our own choices and we would be sensible about it.

…it’s like culture changes with the time. Like before, when they like didn’t have computers and everything it was like a closer community but now that you’ve got all the technology it’s kind of changed the culture completely

Culture seems to be about identity

I think they do and I think we actually saw that ourselves in Project Pride (a performance about Burnley). Like we saw what it was like and we saw the changes and telling people about what we had found and kind of… I don’t know about anyone else but it made me feel happy because I had that knowledge that they didn’t have…I was imparting it to everyone else and it just seemed like everyone in the room was just suddenly slightly closer because they knew it all collectively.

I’m not going to say I’m not normal, but I just like … I don’t like to be the same as everyone else.

For young people, art and culture can be about happiness and enjoyment

well you kind of feel accepted right away, because everyone’s the same as you are, like they’ve got in not because of their talent but because of their love for the arts. And you just feel good that someone else feels the same way that you do about a certain activity.

No one was like the best at anything, we were all just in love with the arts

I felt really like important!

…and friendship

With like, things like the Youth Theatre and that brings you closer because you meet people like dance schools, like you just get an instant group of friends - well not instant but you get a group of friends that you all share the same interests and then its something that brings you closer

… and anticipation

Because it’s the whole buzz of it all, like you’re in a mist of hairspray and strange costumes and things like that. Just to show people what you can do, you may not win anything, but it’s what you’re doing, it’s your two minutes of doing something you love and they aren’t the same. It’s the whole uniqueness of doing two minutes as a team where you’re doing the same thing infront of everyone

Young people referred to being ‘into it’

Well some people just like fall into it by accident. Like my friend, she like … she was walking around Manchester and she just walked into like this shop, Vinyl Exchange? And now she’s obsessed with records. And accidents like that, they’re not everyday things, and that’s not how most people get into it, but it’s accidents like that that are really special.

Young people show commitment to art and culture, but this can mean prioritising

And so it’s just like thinking, about what’s more beneficial for you in the future like looking towards… because we’re close to sixth form now.. so looking towards what we need and then realising that some things you do have to drop them because we’re in GCSEs now. And so we need to realise that there’s what we have to do and what we like to do and you have to kind of, where the lines have been blurred before, you kind of need to separate them out and prioritise what’s important.

Sometimes prioritising can be on the grounds of cost

Because I do so much, things like get more expensive each time and I think like the reason why… because I do ballet, and tap and then that was like, the main thing that I did, the fact that I was doing Latin and street-dance and other dances too just added to money so I think cost is a big thing as well. So that’s why I dropped those two to stick with the ones that were my favourite.

Young people reflected on ‘taking part’ in a workshop with a Creative Practitioner

Taking part: we want active learning

Erm, give them a bit more time to actually do the workshop …Yeah and not as much time, well still some time for explaining, but not as much…

Taking part: being independent learners

Yeah, he spoke to us like wewere interested in it.

Yeah but it wasn’t just standard stuff that would be like rehearsed (by the Creative Practitioner), you know when it’s just like, you do this, you do this, you do this, and this is how you do this. It was kind of like right OK, well what do you want to do about it? And we were just like right, OK then!

Young people referred to technology in their discussion

…that’s what you do – in your free time you go on facebook!And I listen to music on You Tube.

I don’t do very much. I have actually put x-box because I play Guitar Hero. I’ve put drawing, listening to music … I draw some times

I got bullied so now I just do it on Just Dance

Young people reflected on their experience of ‘being in the audience’

Being in the audience: atmosphere

I liked the atmosphere of the actual theatre … And like people actually knew it so they were going along with the plot and you could hear people talking about it and referring to the play, and everyone was listening. Everyone is so into it, they’re listening to the play and they’re actually interested. Whereas some pantomimes and stuff, they don’t actually care, so they just start fiddling and making a racket and stuff. So you could tell that everyone was quite interested in what was going on.

Being in the audience: relevance and familiarity

Experiences need be relevant to young people’s interests:

Well most people our age are into music, they’re into concerts and stuff so, they’re not into like theatre, they like music because they can relate to it in some way, like the songs.

Yeah, because then there’s like a whole feeling of familiarity … the feeling of something familiar amongst something new. It kind of feels good.

Because I’ve watched it like, as the film, but I want to see the experience of like, what it would be like as the theatre, because I don’t know if it would be like, any good, because I’ve never really done that before.

Being in the audience: it has to be believable

I don’t know. I’d rather go just to the pictures and watch a new film.

Why?

Because it’s more realistic, because it’s like, you could see like the fires and everything, whereas in the theatre its just like …Yeah I don’t get how that would work.

Being in the audience: age is relevant

Because of the whole peer pressure thing you’d kind of be self conscious to react in the same way that you would when you’re surrounded by people who don’t care really. Like older people, like they do react, they’ll stand up and clap and cheer and stuff. So you can do the same and you won’t feel weird about standing up and stuff and clapping.

Being in the audience: age is relevant

How would it be if you were in the audience and everyone was your sort of age, would it make a difference?

I think it would. Because of the whole peer pressure thing you’d kind of be self conscious to react in the same way that you would when you’re surrounded by people who don’t care really. Like older people, like they do react, they’ll stand up and clap and cheer and stuff. So you can do the same and you won’t feel weird about standing up and stuff and clapping.

Being in the audience: having a poor view

And her wish was, she couldn’t really see so she wished that she had a better view. Mine was I went to see Billy Elliot and I loved the dancing, and my wish was that I couldn’t really see.

It was our seats. Like, some people, they get in the way! I don’t like sitting (behind) tall people

Yeah because you can’t afford to get the front row seats

Being in the audience: participation and interaction

Like the audience experience, how you experience it as an audience, if it’s like something that you’re watching like a play that you’re not supposed to get involved in, then you’re just watching it as like an outside person it’s alright. But if it’s something different like a concert or something, you don’t want to just be sat there watching them, you want to be like involved with it.

… there’s one in Rochdale called Touchstones and downstairs

it’s like really interactive, like history. And then upstairs it’s like

modern art, like you know like those things where you put your

pen in and it’s a spiral and it makes like those circles? There’s

a person that’s done one, that’s like the size of this wall. And

you get to do one yourself and you can like stick it around it.

And it’s like really fun and me and my friend spent lots of time

in there when we got to Rochdale.

Barriers to participation and engagement with arts and culture

Barriers: arts and culture can be hard to find

Well like with some things you have to like search and search on the internet, like go through links and web pages and loads of different things to just find a website just to go to like a gymnastic club or something…if they handed like leaflets out and then you could just use like a web address or something, that’s like … well you’re straight there it’s so much easier to find. And you feel more … well it kind of appeals because you haven’t tired yourself out like trying to find it. Like is there really a point, it’s not that hard to find. Oh right, I know everything about it and now I can just go…

It’s kind of hard because like you don’t know how much money it will be, sometimes it doesn’t even say on the site.

Barriers: place based challenges

Well Burnley’s just a town really. It’s just a small town….girl… living in a lonely world!! It’s limited to certain things, whereas Manchester’s like whoa! And I haven’t even visited the whole of Manchester

Barriers: place based challenges

say there was something in Liverpool, you wouldn’t… I wouldn’t go there because then like, I’m not used to going there, I’ve never been there before, so I’d have to go with my dad, or go with my mum and it would just be something like that, whether… see in Manchester you can just go with your friends, because you know the bus route, you know how much it costs, but then the problem with things like that is, say you go and watch a show, then you’ve got to worry about how you’re going to get back. Because then you don’t want to be out late at night after the shows. So that puts you off a bit. But if… that’s why I think … oh I don’t know, because I was just going to say, if there’s an arts thing, they tend to be in the day like, art galleries and stuff, but they don’t really appeal to me. They seem boring.

Barriers: place based challenges

Barriers: pointlessness and lack of reward

I just don’t enjoy it because I’m not good at it, I don’t enjoy it. Because it never goes on the wall Do you mean at school? Yeah and at home. So yeah, it’s just not my thing

Barriers: cost

I didn’t want to stop but I had to discuss it with my parents and said well, if it’s costing too much I can lose a couple of them and they said well no, we’ll find a way to do it so…. But it does still come into your mind when you think about it, not obviously when you’re dancing but when you look at how much it’s costing you with like shoes and leotards and skirts and costumes and things like that. Then you really think well, this is mounting up to hundreds and hundreds of pounds.

Barriers: age

I think it’s better if it’s all the same age because when I used to go dancing, they put me in a higher class than everybody else because I was a little bit better, but I used to get bullied because I was only small.

Why did you quit? Because it started having loads of kids in it who were younger.

Young people want arts activities that are…

Hands on Relevant to their interests Level of challenge- has to be flexible Activities and communications have to be

appropriate for age/ability Active (equal involvement) Chosen by them Well paced Well resourced Varied art forms Easy to find Easy to get in to Fun Stimulating Cost

Young people want audience experiences that are…

Professional Less costly/ cheap-ish Well known/word of mouth Invest/motivation/reward/

relaxed Socially fun Have refreshments Accessible (web page, etc…) Easy to get to Inclusive Fun

Unlocking the arts

Unlocking the arts

Locks Keys

• Struggle with transport maybe arrange cheap public trips to arts events

• Less advertising do more advertising• Time to spend with the artists money to help fund the workshop• Theatre schools (hard to get into) scholarships• People don’t know/aren’t motivated to go find out ALL aspects of

performing arts set up a day to show people these different jobs, how to reach them and what they entail

• People with low self belief family workshops• Some people find theatre schools difficult to fund and get into

help (like scholarships) to help people get into art academies• Some activities (e.g. Dance exams) are too expensive for some

people to afford A fund that young people could apply for to pay for some exams

What the arts mean to me

what makes me happy is doing anything involved in the arts I think, and it’s kind of the performance side. Sometimes I don’t really like the build up to it, but when the performance is, I can be someone else. And I find that a really good thing in the arts, so even if you’re painting or something you can express your feelings on to a sheet of paper or whatever 22.21 But like acting, you can be someone else. You can express your feelings like in a different way and you just get to be someone else and I just think it’s great. And I did a heart on it because it’s also like, my life really.

What the arts mean to me

I’ve always liked like reading stories and fantasies and being taken to different places and that’s what the arts mean to me, they take me to different places where I can be someone else, and choose another maybe future or history for myself that could never come true realistically. And that’s what it means to me.

What the arts mean to me

I like to be characters who can dolike, crazy things. And then, that’s why like, these yellow lines are kind of like the the… well it seems like I want to be a show off and I want all the spotlight on me but it’s like the hero of the story, that’s why he’s got a little sword there because I like the heroes in a story because they tend to be the most … the one that gets to do the exciting things. So the arts is like a way of doing exciting things by being these characters.