Operation Soapbox

LEARNING AND PARTICIPATION

The interactive website for Operation Soapbox is now live - if you are a participating group or if you'd like to find out more about the project you can logon at www.southbankcentre.co.uk/soapbox

What do young people from across Britain want to say to the world? As participants in a giant national conversation what question would they ask? What messages would they send? And how could those ideas be explored and articulated other than through words?

Inspired by those questions, Southbank Centre is inviting schools and youth groups from around the UK to be part of Operation Soapbox, a national project to explore how we express ourselves and how new ideas form.

Using the medium of the soapbox - the traditional vehicle for independent expression - young people nationwide are asked to join a creative experiment with each other and with the public. Participating schools or classes receive a Soapbox Satellite - an ordinary looking box containing an extraordinary question or idea - as a catalyst for a year of exploration. What they do with the box and its cargo is up to them. All we ask is that they use it as a springboard for their own conversations, ideas and experiments. And that they send back their 'findings', in one form or another, by Summer 2008.

For more details about the project or to register your interest as a participating group, please call 020 7921 0871 or email soapbox@southbankcentre.co.uk

(A Southbank Centre project, in collaboration with AOC)

Love the Festival Hall

LEARNING AND PARTICIPATION

Memories delivered daily

Southbank Centre has launched a nationwide call for memories of the Royal Festival Hall, with the support of Age Exchange and BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Was it a musical event, a turn across the largest ballroom floor in London or a visit to the Festival of Britain that secured your affection for the Royal Festival Hall? Perhaps it was someone you met here, a childhood visit or simply the building itself. Do you have a memorable moment or a special story of the Royal Festival Hall?

Why not share it and be part of our archive of memories, which will launch when we open our doors again in the summer of 2007. Share your story and be part of a living archive - a people's history - a celebration of over 50 years of priceless memories and unforgettable moments.

Visit lovethefestivalhall.org.uk to learn more about the project and entrust your memory to the archive. Thank you.

Takacs Quartet

LEARNING AND PARTICIPATION

As part of their residency at Southbank Centre, The Takacs Quartet are engaged in a two year education project involving students from Stoke Newington School, Hackney, and the Guildhall School of Music and Drame.

This project is linked into our commissioning of James MacMillan to write a quartet for the Takacs, to be premiered in May 2008. Students will have the opportunity to learn more about major works in the string quartet repertoire, as well as learning about the process of music composition.

To keep in touch with this and more Learning and Participation at Southbank Centre, register your details so you can be sent updates.

PLAY

LEARNING & PARTICIPATION

18 August - 2 October 2006

176,900 people visitors experienced this project in just seven weeks. We invited visitors to take the stage and become the orchestra!

"On the outdoor terrace, seating is laid out as if in an orchestra. When you take a seat the instruments that belongs there begins to sound, playing its part in a piece of music. Moving around the space and trying different seats, you experience a musical score in constant evolution. By switching on your mobile phone's Bluetooth function, you can download unique ringtones and send sounds back to eventually become part of the music played by the virtual orchestra."

Click here for more information on this project.

Natascha Eleonoré

EAR

A singer who performs an eclectic blend of soul, reggae and hip-hop, moving between hard-hitting lyrics and smooth soulful singing. She has been featured on BBC 1Xtra and BBC Asian Network, and performed with Catch 22 at Glastonbury this summer. Her forthcoming debut album features Afro-Cuban rhythm legends Horacio 'El Negro' Hernandez, Robby Ameen and Richie Flores. She played recently at Southbank Centre on as part of B.Supreme – the UK’s Festival for Women in Hip-Hop.

Read Natascha's blog here

Trading Places

LEARNING & PARTICIPATION

People, poetry and photography of Lower Marsh

What is the poetry of the places where you live? What are the hidden stories of the street you walk down every day?

Trading Places was a project inspired by the Poetry International Festival 2006. Kwame Dawes' Wisteria: Twilight Songs from the Swap Country is a collection of poems based on the memories of elders in his local community in South Carolina. In a parallel journey of reminiscence Southbank Centre worked with the people of Lower Marsh, Spread the Word an the Lomographic Society International on a project that discovered the hidden poetry of everyday places and captured a portrait of this street through photography.

Working with school children, local young people, residents, shop owners, office workers, market traders and elders we created an interactive wall of songs, snapshots, poetry and memories, a 'Lomowall', at the front of the Royal Festival Hall.

Visit the minisite: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/tradingplaces/

Catherine Anne Davies

EAR

A multi-instrumentalist who writes dark and twisted songs and sings with "A voice that sounds like a lake of black honey." (Metro)

Currently recording tracks for her debut album with producer Paul Draper (Mansun, Skin, Komakino) Catherine is also collaborating with Nitin Sawhney for his forthcoming album London Undersound. She will be performing as part of the Girl Friday event at Southbank Centre, programmed in collaboration with The Lipster, in March 2008.

Read Catherine's blog here

Emerging Artists in Residence (EAR)

EAR

Southbank Centre's Emerging Artists in Residence (EAR), is a multi-talented group which came out of the Aftershock London project directed by Nitin Sawhney in 2007. Featuring some of London's hottest new artists including singer - songwriters, rappers, MCs and beathboxers alongside spoken word artists and DJs.

The EARs are:

Each EAR has their own page which you can access by clicking here

Hidden Love Song

LEARNING AND PARTICIPATION

February 2006

Hidden Love Song was part of a series of installations on the hoardings keeping the public in touch with education at the Royal Festival Hall during the building's transformation:

"Valentine's Day and a new composition by Mark-Anthony Turnage is celebrated in a new collaboration between Southbank Centre, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Central Saint Martins and two primary schools in Lambeth and Kent.

The new installation is the latest in a series to brighten a popular commuter route alongside the Royal Festival Hall. The installation contains hundreds of love messages written by Londoners, hidden behind a silver film. Visitors to the South Bank walking past the installation will be encouraged to scratch away the silver to reveal the poems and messages, while being serenaded by excerpts from Turnage's composition: Hidden Love Song."

Related Media:

Saxophonist Martin Robertson plays a fragment of Hidden Love Song

Pupil at Ashmole primary school reads his poem about love

Participation is the key word

Hi to anyone who is reading our new blog! To the Learning and Participation staff and Artists please feel free to add as much as you like to the blog; whether it be facts about The Spirit Level, what you do in The Spirit Level, events or workshops you have run in the past, currently or are going to put on in the future and even inspirational bits and bobs. The more the better!

Have fun!

Emma and Nina