In a move to explore topics that are currently underrepresented in theatre and dance for young people, five international partners including Scotland’s Imaginate, that produces Edinburgh’s international children’s festival, are launching a new joint project called PUSH.
On Tuesday 8 November Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop will join Imaginate , Krokus Festival (Hasselt, Belgium), The Ark (Dublin, Ireland), Norsk Scenekunstbruket (Oslo, Norway) and Aaben Dans (Roskilde, Denmark) to launch the two-year project which will focus on Gender and sexual identity; Migration and (over) Protection.
PUSH will offer international, high quality opportunities for artists, stimulating European dialogue and encouraging the development of work that pushes boundaries and tells a more diverse range of stories.
In anticipation of the launch, Fiona Ferguson, Creative Development Director at Imaginate who is leading the project said, “We want to inspire artists to think differently about how they make work, encouraging them to challenge the status quo and create stories that speak to all children. There are a lot of shows made for adults that is quite directly political and related to identity but it is still very tentative in shows for children.”
The project is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union that is set up to support the cultural, creative and audio visual sectors. For more information, go to www.PUSHproject.eu