Elemental

We recently received this exciting opportunity for new and emerging Street Artists with Mintfest’s International Summer School:

Mintfest International Summer School for Street Arts.

Newly emerging professional street artists, or students of drama or theatre with an interest in working in the outdoors, are being offered the opportunity to spend a week working with leading national and international street artists to develop their skills and talents in the run up to Mintfest, 2010.

They will work on a show, created by their course tutor, which they will showcase at the end of the course to large audiences and industry professionals alike at Mintfest, Kendal’s International festival of street arts.

Now in it’s fourth year, Mintfest has already become one of the UK’s largest and most significant street arts festivals. It is a member of Without Walls, a consortium of 8 of the UK’s most strategically significant outdoor arts festivals, whose aim is to support the development and creation of outdoor work in the UK.

The week-long, residential course will take place in Kendal, Cumbria from August 29 - September 5, 2010.

The course is open to both UK and International artists and will cost £200, which includes all accommodation, tuition fees and meals. There will be a maximum of 30 places available, and demand is expected to be high, so people are advised to apply early.

The deadline for applications is 26 March 2010.

The Mintfest International Summer School for Street Arts is the first of its kind in the UK!

If you know of individuals who may be interested in taking part, or organisations who this information may be of interest to, please do forward the information on.

For an application form and information see the website: www.lakesalive.org.

Completed application forms should be returned to: Jenny Graham at Kendal Arts International jenny@kendalartsinternational.com.

Should you need any further information or have any queries please do not hesitate to contact Jenny on 01539 720252 or email as above.

On Friday 5th June, Julie Tait from Kendal Arts International joined at the Manchester Central Library for Elemental North West. (Here is a brief synopsis of the event).

Julie Tait used two presentations introducing Kendal Arts International then Lakes Alive:

Lakes Alive:

To download copies of the documents please click the relevant document names - Lakes Alive, Kendal Arts International

For more about the North West please click here

Director, Kendal Arts International

has more than 20 years’ experience working in the cultural sector. She was Director of the National Association of Youth Theatres 1991-1993 and has since worked with a broad range of international, national and local cultural organisations and public sector bodies. From 1989-2001 Julie was based in Birmingham and focussed on community arts, arts-in-education and arts in criminal justice developments including setting up a new community music organisation (Sound it Out), devising and implementing a new education programme for Birmingham Town Hall and an education strategy for The Drum (the then new black arts centre) and acting as fundraising consultant to Clean Break Theatre Company and Dance United. She worked with Birmingham City Council on the Towards the Millennium Festival, a joint programme between Birmingham cultural organisations, the South Bank Centre, St David’s Hall in Cardiff and BBC Radio 3 where she developed and co-ordinated the artistic programme alongside Anthony Sargent (now CEO of The Sage) and Sir Simon Rattle. She worked on a number of additional festival developments with South Asian Performing Arts and Dance (SAMPAD) and the Birmingham International TV and Film Festival as well as co-founding the Birmingham Book Festival in 1998. She produced the grand opening of the National Cycle Network for Sustrans and partners in 2000 in Centenary Square, Birmingham.

Since moving to Cumbria in 2001 Julie has focussed on developing and delivering projects which bring together highest quality arts with the stunning and varied landscapes of the County. In 2006 she founded Kendal Arts International (KAI) and, in partnership with Manchester International Arts, piloted Mintfest (an International Street Arts Festival in Kendal) which has grown rapidly in scale and reputation. KAI has since piloted a number of other outdoor arts initiatives and has now been commissioned to deliver one of three Legacy Trust UK projects for We Play, the North West’s Olympic Legacy programme. This will be a new Cumbria-wide outdoor animation programme, called Lakes Alive, which will invest a minimum of £4 million in outdoor arts development over the next 4 years .

Lakes Alive

Lakes Alive is a new programme led by Kendal Arts International (KAI), working in partnership with Manchester International Arts (MIA), and one of only 3 in the North West which will form part of the region’s We Play Olympic Legacy programme and the Cultural Olympiad programme for London 2012. It is a Cumbria-wide outdoor animation programme of regional, national and international significance and reach. At its core is an annual high profile, international site-specific event or series of events and an annual season of bespoke street arts festivals and events across Cumbria developed in partnership with each locality culminating with the flagship festival Mintfest. It will also feature a programme called Made in the Lakes which will commission new outdoor performance work created and showcased in Cumbria (then out on tour regionally, nationally and internationally) and community participation, education & skills development and longitudinal research/documentation/evaluation strands. Lakes Alive is a member of the national consortium Without Walls.

For more about the North West click here.

Elemental in the North West takes place on Friday 5th June in conjunction with the start of XTRAX.