Say It Online Info Pack

Get Digi in Your City !

Explore Arts & Culture In Birmingham

Be a Digital Journalist

m e d i a

Information BookletNAME:

Booklet 1

Welcome to Say It Online!This information booklet contains a selection of events happening in Birmingham City. You may choose a total four events to attend (One per week). Please read through the summaries on each page and choose events you wish to attend on the form attached and then return your form to a member of the YEP Media team. YEP Media cannot guaran-tee you entry to your first choice of event as it is subject to availability of tickets.

About the ProjectThis project has been designed for you to get more involved with arts, culture and entertainment activities in your city and help you develop new skills in digital media.

You have been selected to participate in this project because you may have expressed that you are not very familiar with the arts scene in Birmingham and would like to be more involved, or maybe you have shown a great interest in getting to grips with digital media but don’t know where to start.

Over the next four weeks you will have the opportunity to select and attend up to four events and create your own online ‘voice’ in response to those events with the help of YEP Media and other digital media enthusiasts.

The great thing about the internet is that we have the opportunity to re-present ourselves to potentially the entire world. People nationwide and worldwide would love to see what the city of Birmingham has to offer and they will be even more interested to hear it through the voice of the everyday people who live here, people like yourself. That’s the reason for this project.

We expect you to be able to commit 4 evenings between (13th February 2011- 13th March 2011) to attend your chosen shows and be contributing to your personal digital media platforms throughout the four weeks, commenting on your experiences of arts & culture in the city. We encourage you to be creative, make your online space your own, however, derogatory comments and use of abusive or explicit language will not be tolerated. We also expect that you will communicate regularly with the YEP media team, providing feedback on your experiences throughout the project.

Most of all, enjoy the experience. The most interesting commentary digital media ‘ project will be celebrated at the ‘Said It Online’ Awards show after the project is over on the 24th March 2011.

Introduction

Monday 21st February 2011@ Symphony Hall Media Suite

5pm-8pm

with Pete AshtonPete Ashton is a veteran blogger and Internet culture enthusiast whohas been helping people create their own media online for many yearsthrough his social media consultancy ASH-10. Part One - The world of Digital MediaThis session will introduce you to social media and what people use it for. We will look at some interesting/quirky web presences as set up by some of Birmingham’s digital media/arts & culture people. You will get to understand the benefits of social media and why people set up their own blogs, use twitter and post videos on youtube. Part Two – Creating ContentThis section will look at how to create and find content for your digital media platform and different ways you can present it. You will explore how to find your own unique ‘voice’ online, how to creatively express yourself and how to get people to notice.

Part Three - Experiment with Digital Media (Practical)Here you will have the opportunity to set up your own wordpress blog, twitter or youtube account, customise your online space and start to add your own content. Programme Schedule5pm Welcome & Introduction by YEP Media5.15pm - Part One: The World of Digital Media6pm - Break Food/Refreshments6.30pm - Part Two: Creating Content7.15pm - Part Three: Experiement with Digital Media8pm - Close

Digital Media Masterclass

Food & refreshments will be provided!

Protein//LOL (Lots of Love) (Dance)Thursday 17th February | 8pm @ Dance Xchange Known for turning the everyday into witty and profound dance theatre, Luca Silvestrini’s award-winning Protein returns with a timely new piece of physical theatre where love, wanting and connectedness take centre stage.

LOL (lots of love) delves into the world social networking and the impact the internet has had upon the way we live, love one another and belong to society in general. With video animation and original music, LOL (lots of love) mixes social comment, provocative humour and engaging performances.

Kathakbox (Dance)Wed 16th -Fri 18th February | 8pm @ MAC Kathakbox is the latest ground-breaking new piece of dance production from mac associate artist Sonia Sabri Company which celebrates the unique, diverse energy of modern Britain through a brand new dance style: Urban Kathak.

Bringing together Indian Kathak dance’s grace and vigour and Hip Hop’s laid back groove, complex classical rhythms converse with beatbox whilst the verbal dexterity of Kathak rap (Kavitt) layers with urban poetry.

Kathakbox does not ‘box in’ these genres to a particular time or place, but discovers the raw spirit and heartbeat of each art form which reverberate between cultures.

Matthew Bournes Cinderella (Dance/Theatre)15th Feb - 19th Feb @ Birmingham HippodromeNew Adventures’ new production of CINDERELLA is a thrilling and evocative journey through London during the Second World War. Matthew Bourne’s interpretation of Prokofiev’s haunting score has, at its heart, a true wartime romance. A chance meeting results in a magical night for Cinderella and her dashing young RAF pilot, together just long enough to fall in love before being parted by the horrors of the Blitz.

First seen in the West End in 1997, but now completely revised in this brand new production created to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Blitz. It features design by Lez Brotherston who won an Olivier award for his original designs, and new lighting designs by Neil Austin. The production will also feature sensational sound design by Paul Groothius which will take the audience into the heart of Prokofiev’s magnificent score and the sound world of war-torn London.

Week One: 14th- 19th Feb

Cockroaches (Theatre)Thursday 24th February | 7.45pm @ Crescent Theatre‘Cockroaches’ is a truly exciting piece of devised theatre, which explores the true darkness of reality. Follow the journey as we examine criminals in an institution sharing their heart wrenching and sometimes hilarious experiences. Whether you will detest or sympathise with these people it is anyone’s guess. Imprisonment is just a state of mind.

Tilted Theatre Company’ takes its inspiration from all aspects of life. The Company seeks to delve into the known and unknown, challenging and expanding the minds of their audience. Sustaining and flaming the passion of those who are already attached to the theatre, whilst at the same time challenging and reaching a new generation, with a contemporary style combining the elements of light, dark and abstract. Always inventive and cutting edge in their techniques and vision.

The X-Factor Live! (Music)20th February | 7.30pm @ LG Arena (NEC)For 10 weeks you watched the finalists sing their hearts’ out live from your living room… now you’ll be able to see them live in front of your very eyes!

Following last year’s record breaking tour, demand is going to be HUGE so get your tickets now for The X Factor Live Tour 2011 which calls in at the LG Arena, Birmingham on Saturday 19 & Sunday 20 February 2011.

Taking to the stage this year are 2010 winner Matt Cardle, Rebecca Ferguson, One Direction, Cher Lloyd, Mary Byrne, Katie Waissel, Wagner, Paije Richardson and Aiden Grimshaw.

Disney On Ice (Music/Dance)Wednesday 23rd - Sat 26th February | 7pm @ LG Arena(NEC)In an original story, Disney On Ice presents a Disneyland Adventure invites audiences to re-live their fondest Disneyland memories, as they join favourite characters and classic villains on a colourful and exciting vacation to the theme park on 23-27 February at Birmingham’s LG Arena.

Produced by Feld Entertainment, this adventure features an array of favourite Disney characters, including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Baloo, Disney Princesses Snow White and Cinderella, Stitch, Disney/Pixar’s The Incredibles and Buzz Lightyear.

Week Two: 20th -26th Feb

Week Three: 27th Feb-5th MarFairport Convention (Music)Sat 5th March | 7.30pm @ Birmingham Town HallHailed as the originators of British folk-rock music, Fairport Convention remain one of the most entertaining bands on today’s concert circuit. Their sell-out gigs attract critical acclaim and delight audiences.The band has won a coveted BBC Lifetime Achievement Award and Radio 2 listeners voted their album Liege & Lief , ‘The Most Influential Folk Album of All Time’.

Fairport has a vast repertoire to draw on and this concert will mix old and new. As well as showcasing brand new songs from their recently-released studio album, the show will feature a suite of songs celebrating the fortieth anniversary of their ‘folk opera’ Babbacombe Lee.

CBSO Youth Orchestra (Music)Sunday 27th February | 7pm @ Symphony HallThose twentieth-century blues…the sensuous harmonies and shot-silk colours of Debussy’s impressionist masterpiece launched a new era for classical music. Five decades and two world wars later, Ralph Vaughan Williams stood back and surveyed the wreckage. Tonight, English music expert John Wilson takes our superb Youth Orchestra on that incredible journey, from Debussy’s gorgeous dream to the musical firestorms of Vaughan Williams’s devastating Sixth Symphony – by way of jazz-age Manhattan, where pianist Leon McCawley takes the solo in Gershwin’s fabulously tuneful “skyscraper concerto”. From decadent Paris to a bombed out wasteland: it’s a hell of a ride, but if you heard the CBSO Youth Orchestra in Walton’s First Symphony last season, you’ll already know that these young players don’t pull their punches!

Orchestra of the Swan presents Peter Rabbit & Friends (Music)Sat 5th March | 11am @ Birmingham Town HallTown Hall Associate Artist, Orchestra of the Swan, teams up with children’s television favourite Lorna Laidlaw and hundreds of local school children to bring the wonderful stories of Beatrix Potter to life.Come dressed as your favourite character and follow the orchestra as they splish, splash, splosh with Jemima-Puddle Duck and chase naughty Peter through the magnificent Town Hall.

Week Four: 6th -13th MarThe Live Box: Gemma Weekes (Music/Spoken Word/Poetry)Sat 12th March | 7.45pm @ The DrumAn author, a singer, a compulsive poet, a permanently budding guitarist and all-round scribbler whose debut novel, Love Me (Chatto & Windus, January 2009) has been greeted with splendiferous reviews in the Guardian (‘a delight’), the Telegraph (‘hits you where you feel it most’) and the Independent (‘a wonderfully assured debut’) and has so far been translated into Dutch and Italian. She’s performed and devised pieces for venues all over the UK and abroad: including The Jazz Café “ - where she appeared with Cody ChesnuTT supporting the Black-Eyed Peas” - the Southbank Centre, Stratford East Theatre Royal, The Royal Festival Hall, the Albany, the Poetry cafe and at local dives too numerous to mention.

Iron & Wine (Music)Thu 10th March |7.30pm @ Town HallIron and Wine is the musical project of Sam Beam, a South Carolina-born painter and former film studies lecturer, now living in Texas. Beam’s roots in the visual arts signpost the refined and sombre storytelling that weaves throughout his music.With a softly spoken delivery conveying a certain cinematic gravitas, he conjures wonderfully evocative narratives rich in down-home symbolism and vivid characterisation. His music has featured on soundtracks including Garden State and Twilight.This concert runs in support of Iron and Wine’s new album, Kiss Each Other Clean, recently released after a three year recording hiatus. The trademark hushed vocals and plaintive acoustic guitar of Sam Beam remain, this time complimented by multi-layered productions and a greater rhythmical sophistication.

Welsh National Opera (Music)Fri 11th March | 7.15pm @ Birmingham HippodromeAll of Viennese high society is going to Prince Orlofsky’s Ball. They just don’t want each other to know this. Eisenstein should be going to prison so he’s keeping a low profile. For obvious reasons his wife and her lover Frank are also keen to conceal their identities. Their maid Adele should be tending to her sick aunt, not partying. Eisenstein’s best friend Falke however is plotting revenge on him for making him walk through the city dressed as a bat. By the end of the night all masks will be lifted, identities will be known and truths will be revealed. The waltz king, Johann Strauss II’s comic operetta is a delicious Viennese treat, filled with sumptuous music. Celebrated opera director John Copley’s new period set- production promises to create an evening of opulence, elegance and sheer frivolity.

The Cleansing of Constance Brown (Theatre)15th -19th March 2011 | 7pm @ AE Harris TheatreThe Cleansing Of Constance Brown was conceived whilst performing It’s Your Film across Europe. It imagines that show grown up and expanded, the content changed but the ethos remaining.

The themes are power, the power of people who inhabit the rooms opening off this corridor, and cleansing, the cleansing of a woman, Constance Brown, who appears to have lived in all ages, both here and around the globe.

Each scene and character is presented in highly realised visual detailing of costumes props and acting. The corridor itself with its shifting configuration becomes the 73rd character, blank, often menacing and unpredictable. Scenes intercut and morph into one each other making connections across time and space

George’s Marvellous Medicine (Theatre)15th-19th March 2011 | 10.30am, 1.30pm, 7.30pm @ Alexandra TheatreThe Birmingham Stage Company is back on tour with a brand new adaptation of one of Roald Dahl’s most exciting stories. It follows the company’s acclaimed productions of HORRIBLE HISTORIES, WHY THE WHALES CAME and DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD. If you’re looking for fizztickling fun and wizzpopping magic for all the family, then don’t miss George and his Marvellous Medicine!

We present Roald Dahl’s amazing story about a young boy who makes a marvellous new medicine to cure his grandmother of her terrifying temper. But when his grandmother drinks his special new potion, the most incredible things start to happen. And George’s adventure has just begun!

Footloose (Theatre)14th-19th March 2011 | 7.30pm @ Birmingham HippodromeFOOTLOOSE explodes onto the stage with classic ‘80s anthems including Holding Out For A Hero, Almost Paradise, Let’s Hear It For The Boy, and of course the title track, Footloose. Life in small-town Bomont is peaceful – until City boy, Ren, arrives. Breaking every taboo, Ren brings dance back to the heart of a town held back by the memory of a tragedy. Matt Willis, star of triple platinum selling pop band Busted and I’m A Celebrity winner, embarks on his first national theatre tour. Joining Matt is award winning actor Steven Pinder (Brookside, Doctors), who takes to the stage as Reverend Shaw Moore and star of the future Max Milner, who plays Ren, a role that launched the careers of Kevin Bacon following the iconic 1984 film and Derek Hough, who shot to fame in the musical production in 2006 and has since been crowned champion three times on hit US show Dancing with the Stars.

Week Five: 14th - 20th March

Support Session 2Date/Location TBCAt this session, we will review your experience of the Say It Online Project overall and brief you about the Said it Online awards show that will be taking place on the 24th March 2011.

We will also keep you informed of any Social media surgeries and workshops taking place in the Birmingham Area.

Support SessionsSupport Session 1Date: Monday 28th February 6pmLocation: Baker Building, 4th Floor, Room 401, Birmingham City University, Perry Barr, Birmingham, B42 2SU

This is your opportunity to ask YEP Media any questions on digital media, share your experience thus far and discuss the project.

Thursday 24th March 2o11 @ The Studio, Cannon Street, Birmingham7pm-9pm

An opportunity to celebrate the things you’ve learned and share your experience with others. You will be presented with a certificate for participating in the project and special prizes will be presented for the best participants. An evening of food, light entertainment and socialising.

Further information will be disclosed throughout the project.

‘Said It Online’ Awards Show

How to create a good reviewThis guide is intended to help you in producing or structure your event reviews. It is important to remember, that the type of arts event you attend may influence how you answer the questions. Not all the questions will be applicable to your event. Be creative and ask your YEP Media mentor to support you if you need assistance. Introduction to the visit Name of production? Name of production company? What were your initial expectations before attending the production? Where was it held? Your Interpretation of the productionWhat was the genre of the production? How does it resemble any events you know about or have seen? What are its primary meanings?How did you interpret what it was about?How were the production’s meanings conveyed through these things? How it impacted you and the wider audience How did this production impact you as a member of the audience.Compare your response to others in the audience or your family member (e.g. were they amused/entertained/enlightened where you weren’t?);Summarise the reasons for your feelings by referring to the elements of the production you attended. ConcludingConsidering how your appreciation of the arts was developed and/or by how your understand-ing of an aspect was extended.Name some of the positive things you think this production contributes to our City.

You do not need to answer all these questions but they will create a good basis for your event review. Contact the YEP Media team if you would like assistance.

Enjoy!

YEP Media Contact Details

Shantel KadirDirector

Tel: +44 (0) 7706 361 990Email: [email protected]: @shantelyep

Samantha ThodhlanaManaging Director

Tel: +44 (0) 7522672302Email: [email protected]: @samanthayep

Daniel BlydenDirector

Tel: +44 (0) 7707 531 915Email: [email protected]: @danielyep

We are a company of media professionals who recently completed our degree in media and com-munications and we will be coordinating the Say It Online project for your enjoyment. Therefore, if you have any queries, concerms or requests, please do not hesitate to contact us via our contact details below.

www.yepmedia.co.uk

Say It Online Info Pack

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