Following a series of online workshop sessions for young people at home last Summer, and a programme of taster digital workshops in Derby SEND schools in December 2020, the Reimagine – Belonging Together project, inspired by themes from Alex Wheatle’s book Home Girl, began in April 2021. 

The project has involved young people from Ivy House School, St Andrew’s Academy, St Clare’s School, St Giles School, St Martins School and Horizons 6^th Form in Derby.

The young people worked creatively with artists from Hubbub Theatre Company, QUAD and Sinfonia Viva to create new music, movement, art and animation pieces which were inspired by the theme of friendship.

The project was a mix of online and in person sessions, with the final performances always planned to be digital.

<br>

Sharing Caring was written and recorded in 2021 by young people at St Andrew’s Academy with the Sinfonia Viva team. It was orchestrated and mixed by Jack Ross. Felted backdrops were created by Ivy House School with Abbie Canning from QUAD Movements and drumming devised by young people at St Andrew’s Academy with Hubbub Theatre Company.

<bR>

The project began with a meeting of the artists and teachers involved in the project.  During this session the team discussed the project, including the aim to create three films inspired by friendship and began to write the project theme song Belonging Together.

The Sinfonia Viva team of Jack Ross, Dave Ayre and Clare Bhabra worked with young people from St Andrew’s and St Giles Schools to create new songs.  Students from St Andrew’s post 16 provision created Sharing Caring, a song all about being friendly to the world and protecting the environment, and pupils from St Giles School wrote a song called Our Friends Are The Best, all about the things they like to do with their friends.  Creative sessions took place in person and online and after the young composers had written their songs, they also learned Belonging Together, and then worked with the Sinfonia Viva team to record themselves singing the songs, to an accompaniment made by a larger team of Sinfonia Viva musicians.

These recordings were passed on to movement and music artists Lucy Haighton, Jo May, Rosalia Pilsworth and Christopher Yarnell from Hubbub who worked with St Martins, Horizons 6^th Form and St Andrew’s Academy, to create new movement and drumming pieces inspired by the songs and theme of friendship.  The final session with each group was planned to be filmed, but unfortunately COVID closed one of the bubbles Hubbub had been working and meant they were unable to be filmed.  A green screen filming session with filmmaker Sam Jordan took place at St Andrew’s and an introductory session with a different group from St Martins was also filmed.

<br>

Our Friends Are The Best was written and recorded in 2021 by young people at St Giles School with the Sinfonia Viva team. It was orchestrated and mixed by Jack Ross. Felted backdrops were created by young people at Ivy House School with Abbie Canning from QUAD. Animations were created by students from year 10 at St Clare’s School with Abbie Canning from QUAD. Movements and drumming devised by young people at St Martins School with Hubbub Theatre Company. Due to COVID St Martins movements were unable to be captured for this film version of the piece.

<br>

QUAD artist Abbie Canning worked with young people from six classes at Ivy House School and with three year 10 classes at St Clare’s School to create the visual elements of the films.  At Ivy House, pupils worked with Abbie and their teachers and support staff to create felted backdrops for the films.  The tactile nature of felting was particularly popular with the young people at Ivy House.  Alongside this, Abbie worked with St Clare’s pupils to create animations which work on top of the felted backgrounds in the Our Friends Are The Best film.  The students considered things that they like to do with their friends and made short animated sequences which fit together to create the beautiful images you see in the film.

 

Filmmaker Sam Jordan visited some of the sessions across the project to create a behind the scenes film, which is accompanied by the song Belonging Together.

<br>

In 2021 Belonging Together was written by the teachers and artists involved in the project and orchestrated by Jack Ross. It was recorded by young people from St Andrews and St Giles School, supported by the Sinfonia Viva team, and mixed by Jack Ross. Students from St Andrew’s, St Martins and Ivy House feature in the film accompanying the music. Sam Jordan filmed some project sessions to give a behind the scenes view into the project.

<br>

Reimagine is a partnership project, led by Derby’s Cultural Education Partnership. It is funded through Arts Council England’s Young People’s Performance Fund with additional support from Derby’s Opportunity Area, Derby County in the Community Trust and Derby City Council.

 

Links to other Reimagine content on the website:

Summer 2020 – online project: https://www.sinfoniaviva.co.uk/blog/reimagine-taking-our-workshops-online

Spotlight on Reimagine: https://www.sinfoniaviva.co.uk/news/this-is-derby-spotlight-on-reimagine