Young people attended an Arts Award Celebration Day at The Grand Theatre, to receive their Bronze Arts Awards and share their incredible work. The sounds of dancing, acting, singing, discussions and shared creative workshops echoed in the auditorium as the following groups made the space theirs; The Grand Young Company, Grand Young Technicians, Fylde Coast Youth Dance Company, Aspire Youth Dance & FY Wingz, The Grand Community Chorus.

The Grand Theatre is an Arts Award Centre and runs a range of Arts Awards for young people. The Awards inspire young people to grow their arts and leaderships talents, they offer opportunities for young people to explore and express their own interests. The Awards can be achieved at five levels; Discover is the introductory level, the others are qualifications, Explore (entry level 3), Bronze (level 1), Silver (level 2) and Gold (level 3 & carries 16 UCAS points).

Young people research their chosen artform, make new artworks and performances, share and present this work, and complete a portfolio to chart their learning journey.

Silver and Gold focus on leadership skills, young people take on an arts challenge and will create an event, exhibition or performance that will express how they have met their challenge.  The Arts Awards offer opportunities to build skills, to connect with real world experiences and offer work based learning within the creative industries. This supports employability skills and opens up knowledge around pathways into further and higher education courses.

The Grand is celebrating the achievements of the Grand Young Company who have achieved a Bronze Arts Award in performance through the exploration or different performances genres inspired by the pantomime and The Kite Runner. The Grand Young Technicians have achieved their Bronze Arts Award in Technical Theatre where they learnt technical skills in lighting and sound through using the technical resources at the Grand. The Digital Silver Arts Award shared their exhibition and their work around mental health and well being, Fylde Coast Youth Dance Company shared the dance work they have created as part of their Bronze Dance Arts Award.

The Awards were presented by Susan Walker, who is Grand Theatre Trustee on the Arts and Entertainments Board and Celine Wyatt our Head of Creative Learning and Engagement here at the Grand Blackpool.

Before the presentation took place, the theatre was full of life as our Silver Arts Award students  presented their exhibition in theSPACE. The photographic and graphic design digital award focused on the links between Mental Health and Social Media, and also explored love and sexuality through the eyes of the church and family. It looked at acceptance on many levels and explored resilient moves through difficult moments we encounter in life. The Silver arts award was Co-produced with Future U with sessions in Film editing, Graphic design, photography etc held at Blackpool and the Fylde College.

In the Grand Studio the Talented FCYD Contemporary Youth Dance Company were sharing their Bronze Arts award skills up in the Studio. Throughout the year they worked with professional dancers and companies to create exciting and innovative performance works to be showcased at local events and regional dance platforms. The company runs differently to other dance classes; it follows the process a professional dance company would take in developing dancers and producing performance work. It supports dancers individually and collectively and nurtures their skills and talent to support them to continue in the arts as a career.

On the Grand main stage throughout the afternoon, all our groups got together and took part in open warm ups. Our Community Chorus  joined our Hip Hop class with F Y Wingz . The Grand Young Company also sang with the Community Chorus and took part in a warm up with Aspired Youth Dance Company run by Sarah Gough . The Youth Dance Company based in Blackpool is open to young people of Ages 10-16 yrs, open to graduates of The Royal Ballet School primary STEPS program & talented young people from Blackpool Aspire. Sarah Gough ran the workshop with her extremely talented young dancers and they performed part of a piece they have been working on throughout the year.

The Grand Theatre is committed to creative programmes of work that enable young people to lead their arts experiences, to build new skills and confidence as they move forward on their learning journeys.  The Arts Awards programme at the Grand is supported by Future U, Curious Minds, Blackpool Council and the Arts Council.

We wish all our groups a really relaxing summer, and fingers crossed for all our young people who have exam results coming up!

To book your place on our workshops or to find out more about an event, contact Phil Fairhurst by email philf@blackpoolgrand.co.uk

Creative Learning run many events throughout the year for ages 3 to 103! Just keep visiting our blog to hear about the next event or sign up to the Grand Theatre’s Twitter or Facebook page. Why not follow us on Instagram too!