Community Partners

Attenborough Arts Centre’s Community Partners programme brings together a range of Leicester creative organisations to deliver weekly participatory activity for our local communities.

Established in 1997, we have developed long-term relationships to become a valued creative home for our communities. Our Community Partners programme currently achieves over 5,000 engagements each year.

Our Community Partners bring a range of expertise to deliver participatory programmes which are inclusive and accessible. Attenborough Arts Centre works individually and collectively with our Community Partners to identify additional ways of collaborating together and creating exciting new opportunities for our participants.

Bright Sparks

BrightSparks is a community of mental health service users and volunteers who use the arts to promote positive images of mental health and wellbeing. They work in close partnership and collaboration with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT).

BrightSparks exists to support and showcase the creative talent that exists within the mental health community through a growing number of creative groups and projects. These include:

ArtSpace

A visual arts drop-in for targeted mental health service users with severe and enduring mental health. Currently supported by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT).

Showcase Collective

This is a Attenborough Arts Centre-based creative writing side of Showcase Smoothie – an award winning literature and music based project, predominantly targeting Black men with experience of mental health issues. It is led by Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust (LPT) and partnered by a range of arts, health and education organisations locally and nationally.

Comedy Asylum

The Comedy Asylum is one of BrightSparks’ longest running projects. Led by Rob Gee, the project started out as an annual programme of workshops using improvisation to write a show for the Leicester Comedy Festival each February. Alongside core delivery at AAC, Comedy Asylum now delivers regular comedy courses in Leicester and Leicestershire, including at the Recovery College. They also work in psychiatric hospitals in Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire, having expanded the team to include local comedians Matt Hollins and Kirsty Munro.

WORD!

www.wordpoetry.co.uk

WORD! is a poetry and spoken word voluntary organisation uniquely co-produced by an NHS Trust, LPT, and delivering one of the longest running poetry and spoken word events in the UK. The eponymously named ’WORD!’ takes place, usually, on the last Thursday of the month at Attenborough Arts Centre – where WORD! has been in residence since 2018.

Movers Theatre Company

Movers Theatre Company is a long-running independent theatre company for learning disabled adults who regularly rehearse and perform at Attenborough Arts Centre.

Tea Dance by Values (Voluntary Action Leicester)

Voluntary Action Leicester (VAL) runs weekly Tea Dance sessions at Attenborough Arts Centre for learning disabled adults and their support.

Voluntary Action Leicester has been an active part of the local voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector for over half a century. Originally formed as the Leicester Council for Social Services in 1965, their work has constantly evolved with the times, but always kept local people at its heart.

VAL provides advice, support and training to charities and community groups across Leicester and Leicestershire.

With around 2,400 registered charities and an estimated 3,800 grassroots community organisations across the city and county, VAL helps charities to reach their potential and continue delivering vital services within local communities.

ID Dance Co. produced by We Are Epic

ID Dance Co. creates high-quality work that challenges expectations of who a dancer is, by bringing together talented dancers with different bodies and minds from a range of backgrounds and cultures.

ID Dance Co. is part of We Are Epic’s talent development work for emerging artists in Leicestershire. Inclusive dance practice is at the centre of the company and members of ID Dance Co. attend weekly professional dance classes at Attenborough Arts Centre, experience Masterclasses with established choreographers and take part in public performances.

We Are Epic

We Are Epic explores new ways to develop high-quality inclusive dance practice in the UK and internationally, brokering innovative international collaborations and exchanges which support and develop diverse artists with different bodies, minds and backgrounds.

We Are Epic has over 23 years of experience of working in the arts. Between them they have danced, directed, toured, produced, created multiple brands and social enterprises, launched and developed the careers of multiple artists and arts professionals, managed international tours and project managed international development and educational theatre projects.

They have worked with and consulted for leading cultural institutions such as UNICEF, WaterAid, University of Leicester, British Council and the BBC. Their UK home is Leicester, but you’ll find them delivering projects in Amman, Cambodia and Indonesia and anywhere else in between.

We Are Epic believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to grow and develop no matter what their background. We all live under the same sky and opportunities to grow and connect should be limitless.

What do We Are Epic do?

Uncover: We uncover talent from under-represented groups

Develop: We develop artists by removing barriers and responding to individual needs

Connect: We connect and support artists with new opportunities, possibilities and experiences

Collaborate: We create unique collaborations and exchanges between the UK and Southeast Asia