UCAN Lead Graduation

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The UCAN Lead Level 1 Graduation took place last week at our annual UCAN Perform Festival.  The graduation celebrated the successful completion of a yearlong drama workshop leader training programme, which was led by the expert professional guidance of Dinos Aristidou and came to an end in March.

‘The Level 1 UCAN Lead prepared young people to become workshop leaders and I’m proud to say that watching them lead workshops and work with children gave me an incredible sense of pride in their competence, their manner, their confidence and the way they deal with all the unpredictable things that come with workshops. It was a really inspiring and joyful process and I have every confidence that the UCAN Lead participants will run wonderful workshops in the future and engage many children and young people with theatre. Once again it was a great pleasure to work with UCAN and be part of their outstanding programmes’ – Dinos Aristidou

The UCAN Lead Level 1 programme equipped participants with the skills to become workshop leaders and we are delighted to say that a number of the participants have since gone on to be employed as workshop leaders.  We would like to thank the Arts Council of Wales for funding this project and Cardiff University, The School of Optometry and Vision Sciences, College of Biomedical and Life Sciences for their generous support.  Below are a selection of photographs from the graduation ceremony; certificates were given out by board member Nicola Crews and also some photographs from UCAN workshops led by UCAN Lead.

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The 2013 Festival

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On Tuesday 23rd July we held our annual festival at the Wales Millennium Centre.  A fantastic day was had by all and we will soon put up a full post about the day’s activities with comments from our members and their families.

We would like to say a big thank you to the festival’s main funder Legal & General; Arts & Kids Cymru for funding our tactile art project ‘Tactiles'; Wales Millennium Centre for hosting the festival; and to everyone who participated, the UCAN Lead team, our trainers & all of our lovely volunteers.

Below are a selection of photographs from the day taken by Heather Winstanley.  More to follow!

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Breaking The Wall

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Breaking the Wall was the centre piece of the 2012 UCAN Perform Festival. This performance was the culmination of an extraordinary Cultural Olympiad Journey when UCAN Productions Junior Chairman, Lloyd Coleman, who was 17 years old at the time, was asked to write a large-scale orchestral work in celebration of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The resulting work, Breaking the Wall, was performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in March 2012. Using this inspirational score and narrative, UCAN Productions, under the direction of Artistic Director Bernard Latham, has created a dramatic representation of the story of Pheidippides, which was performed by highly talented blind and partially sighted young people from across Wales. Lloyd has been the Junior Chairman of UCAN Productions since its launch in 2005 and is currently studying composition at the Royal Academy of Music. As a young man who has both visual and hearing impairments, Lloyd continues to inspire us all. Breaking the Wall is part of the ‘Whose Flame is it Anyway?’, a project led by Disability Arts Cymru, which is part of Power of the Flame, a distinctive and unique contribution from Wales to the Cultural Olympiad, led by the Arts Council of Wales. -------- Music by Lloyd Coleman, words by Giles Abbott and choreography by Alys Jenkins. Performed by members of UCAN Productions, directed by Bernard Latham. The soundtrack is provided by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Nicholas Collon. Websites: www.ucanproductions.org www.lloydcoleman.co.uk

Breaking the Wall was the centre piece of the 2012 UCAN Perform Festival and the performance is now available to watch online (please see above). The performance was the culmination of an extraordinary Cultural Olympiad journey when UCAN Productions Junior Chairman, Lloyd Coleman, was asked to write a large-scale orchestral work in celebration of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The resulting work, Breaking the Wall, was performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in March 2012.

Using this inspirational score and narrative, UCAN Productions, under the direction of Artistic Director Bernard Latham, has created a dramatic representation of the story of Pheidippides, which was performed by highly talented blind and partially sighted young people from across Wales.

Lloyd has been the Junior Chairman of UCAN Productions since its launch in 2005 and is currently studying composition at the Royal Academy of Music. As a young man who has both visual and hearing impairments, Lloyd continues to inspire us all.

Breaking the Wall is part of the ‘Whose Flame is it Anyway?’, a project led by Disability Arts Cymru, which is part of Power of the Flame, a distinctive and unique contribution from Wales to the Cultural Olympiad, led by the Arts Council of Wales.

Music by Lloyd Coleman, words by Giles Abbott and choreography by Alys Jenkins. Performed by members of UCAN Productions, directed by Bernard Latham. The soundtrack is provided by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Nicholas Collon.

To learn more about Lloyd please go to: lloydcoleman.co.uk