SHAKE! Arts >> Media >> Race >> Power February 2013

FREE 5-day course for 16-25 year old's 

- 18-22 February 2013

Art can be a powerful non-violent force for change.

Each day Shake! creative workshops will provide space to imagine what justice looks like, experiment with new ideas, learn new tools and fire up your imagination.

Over the five days, the course will include:

>> interactive workshops, stimulating dialogue & skill-shares with practicing artists/activists/educators ZENA EDWARDS, SAI MURRAY, ED LEWIS, FARZANA KHAN, ERIC SOUL, HI8US SOUTH to creatively campaign for change.

>> practical hands-on techniques in spoken word, online media, film/video and music technology to develop your ideas around injustice and power.

>> access to a/v equipment, workshop spaces and refreshments at the landmark Stephen Lawrence Centre.

>> opportunity to showcase your work and continued involvement in the Shake! network.

** LIMITED PLACES AVAILABLE (for 16-25 year olds) **

To receive a short application form and for more information please contact:
Email: farzana@platformlondon.org Tel: 07926 688 064
Email: taz@stephenlawrence.org.uk Tel: 0208 100 2800

** Deadline for applications: 
FRIDAY 1ST FEBRUARY 2013 **
  
 Shake! is initiated and coordinated by Platform in association with: Conversations Verse in Dialog // Liquorice Fish // Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust // Afrogroov

Platform is a company limited by guarantee no. 2658515 and a registered charity no 1044485.

The winners are... Yorkshire!

Members of Ralph Thoresby team at the regional heats

At yesterday afternoon's National Poetry Slam finals, the team from Ralph Thoresby High School in Leeds were hailed as the overall winners. This group works with Sai Murray, our very own poet-facilitator here at Shake! How well deserved it was, and how hard it must have been for the judges to decide.

Because it was an afternoon of amazing talent and some extraordinary moments. The stage crackled with energy, commitment, and craft. Too many fabulous moments from many groups to recall here, but for me one of the things that stood out about the Leeds group was the political content. A lot of groups addressed tough issues but something about the analysis that the Leeds young people brought seemed sophisticated beyond their years, yet so authentic.

First Wave at 'Shake the Dust'

First Wave at 'Shake the Dust'

Last night's '100% Proof' event showcased the coach mentors for today's National Youth Poetry Slam final plus we also got to see an amazing performance by 'First Wave', a group from the Spoken Word and Hip Hop Learning Community course at University of Wisconsin, Madison (USA). 

This group, now touring the UK, used their own experience of race and racism in the US education system as the basis for this piece. It was mesmerising: a performance of such power, and such polish, and also such rawness, love, humanity. And great tenderness. I went with a friend completely new to this way of working with poetry, and he was overwhelmed by it. The slam groups from around the country filled the audience and you could have heard a pin drop from the concentration and appreciation. 

NEWS! Arts Council funds Shake's major programme!

Great news at Shake! 

ACE funded the pilot, and have now
come through for the major programme

With the Arts Council coming up with a major grant of £57,000, we are 50% towards our funding target to roll Shake! out at two London centres over three years. We'll be working intensively with 150 young people, 75 artists in training, 300 policy-makers, and gazillions of audience through our social media comms campaigns, online and live youth-made films, performances, publications and policy-changing documents.

After Shake's pilot project which started August 2010 at Stephen Lawrence Centre, we knew we had to do this again and do it BIG. So, after gathering a lot of ideas and feedback from everyone involved in the project, the team worked up a three-year programme. This involves doing two Shake! intensive courses a year, each with their own Continuity Programmes of mentoring and support work, based at Stephen Lawrence Centre and at exciting new partner Bernie Grant Arts Centre (Tottenham).

Don't throw activist histories away: The Huntley Conference on Arts & Activism, Culture & Resistance

El Crisis

There were over a 100 artists, activists, community workers, young people, archivists & conservators, educators, parents, grandparents, policymakers......taking part in talks, creative "Groundings" sessions, a parallel youth conference, music & poetry performances, from the fabulous El Crisis, younger talented artists, and the more experienced......discussing race and power, creativity and resilience, protest and activism.....and feasting on delicious food from Jollofpot, book stalls, all in the great facilities of London Metropolitan Archives.

Eric and Jessica Huntley

What was brilliant and so rich about this day was we were learning about art, activism and Black struggle through the legacy and networks of the two activists Jessica and Eric Huntley, now in their 80s, who arrived in London from Guyana in the late 1960s.

'Arts & Activism, Culture and Resistance' event, 18th February, London

Just booked tickets to this event for young people, artists and activists at London Metropolitan Archives near Farringdon. LMA have a big collection on anti-racist struggle in London in their Black Caribbean Community Archives*.

Looks really really interesting, with great artists running sessions including Roshini Kempadoo, Jean Joseph, Errol Lloyd, and includes a youth conference. Step Forward Youth with Gus John, Akala and others.

Spread the word.

*Eric and Jessica Huntley gave their collection to LMA and set up these annual events there. They are political activists from Guyana who came to Britain in the 1950s. Among many other activities, they set up a radical publishing company Bogle-l'Ouverture, promoting Black writers, thinkers, political activists. 

Solidarity and justice for Stephen

Doreen speaks at the Shake! Preview, Feb 2011

'I can't tell you what art does or how it does it, but I know that often art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. I know too that the powerful fear art when it does this, and that amongst the people such art sometimes runs like a rumour and a legend because it makes sense of what life's brutalities cannot, a sense that unites us, for it is inseparable from a justice at last."*    (writer and activist John Berger)


On 16th November 2011, the re-trial finally opened against two men accused of taking part in a racially motivated fatal stabbing of Stephen Lawrence 18 years ago at a bus stop in Eltham, London. 

Doreen Lawrence, family, and supporters have campaigned long and hard for this moment, not only fighting on multiple fronts to take on the system, but also bringing creativity and hope through the work of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. The demand for justice for Stephen has been a central issue for Shake! and everyone at Shake! offers our solidarity with them in this intense and urgent process of re-trial.

Shake! sees what happened to Stephen that day as symptomatic of a deep psychosis at the heart of Britain that must still be confronted and countered daily. Equally symptomatic is that the police investigation was negligent to the point of racism. This was

STOP PRESS! Britain on Trial event in The Guardian

The piece was in The Northerner blog of the Guardian yesterday
"Young people air views on racism, 18 years after Stephen Lawrence murder"

Book your places now! Email platformshake@gmail.com

Britain on Trial: Young People Speak Out: Full Programme details

The Carriageworks, Leeds, this Saturday 29th October, 11.30 - 7pm

Anyone wanting to listen to young people and discuss with us how to take a stand and foster creative resistance to institutional racism – you should come to this. The re-trial for justice for Stephen Lawrence is beginning in November. The country is trying to pretend the ‘riots’ never happened. In Britain on Trial, we ask “where are we now” through a day of workshops and an evening performance to expose Britain’s injustices. 


Hosted by an incredible coalition of Leeds Young Authors, London’s “Shake! Young Voices in Arts, Media, Race & Power” and Leeds University academics from the MA Activism and Social Change, with collaborators from Leeds Bi-Centenary Transformation Project, and Leeds Black Film Club. Chaired by outstanding activist and speaker Esther Stanford-Xosei of Pan-Afrikan Reparations Coalition of Europe.

FULL PROGRAMME HERE

This day is a unique rich mix of politics, art & creativity, and history, driven by young people's own experiences and analyses in collaboration with leading artists and campaigners. Don't miss out.   


Book now, email platformshake@gmail.com

Come to "Britain on Trial", Saturday 29th October, Leeds

Enough is enough

Back in June, Platform, Leeds Young Authors and University of Leeds academics from the MA in Activism and Social Change put in an application to the ESRC Festival of Social Science 2011.  Unlikely context for Shake you think?? Well, talking with Shake's Simon Murray who also works with Leeds Young Authors, we realised that Shake! and LYA are in fact not just doing 'social science' but creating it.  The two groups of creative young people have loads of analysis, loads to teach the world about Britain's rough justice and countless injustices, north and south. On top of that, another incredible step in the search for justice for Stephen Lawrence had just been announced: a re-trial of two defendents due to start in November 2011, testament to the extraordinary determination of Doreen Lawrence. The Festival was also a great opportunity to have conversations with Leeds' radical academics about the work.

What with the chance to get Shake! out of London and in touch with an award-winning group of young power-writers from a great Northern city, we decided to go for a slice of the cash.

Then we heard we got the money....

Shakers at the AFRO TOO Event

Following the success of Afro 1, Railroad7, a leadership network project, came back for its second and final instalment with an event at the RSA. The event saw six artists showcase ideas after an eight month developmental process and brought together creative entrepreneurs across an array of disciplines for an evening of music art and other visual forms. Shakers Kavi, Nuha & Selina volunteered at the event and Eric, Shake facilitator and one of the showcasing artists, interviewed the Shakers to find out their impressions of the night...

Read Samia's Letter Post Shake's Albany Event

Dear Jane, Ben, Ed, Simon, Anna, Eric and Zena,

I often think there’s something quite liberating in writing letters. I wonder whether our words lose value when sent electronically. Anyway, that’s just me thinking out loud. I wanted to write to you to properly thank you all for your time and effort in putting together Shake! as well as sharing a few of my own thoughts. As with everyday of that week in August, I left the Albany on Saturday feeling excited, inspired and full of so much warmth.

SHAKE! Preview is coming!! Sat 26th February at 6.30pm, The Albany, Deptford

This is your chance to hear from the young people and artists who created the SHAKE! course at Stephen Lawrence Centre last August 2010, together with Platform.

It's hotting up, so book your tickets early - Admission is FREE but email platformshake@gmail.com to ensure your seats.

ARTS CHANGING THE FACE OF EDUCATION

SHAKE! is so on the right track. With all your input, YOU could help make this way of teaching THE way of teaching in the future.

This incredible video demonstrates how using the arts to educate our children and young people takes education away from the jurassic ways of teaching that don't instil enough hope in students for a shining future but how the Arts can. Brilliant speech (if a bit late). Brilliant visual graphics. A MUST WATCH!!