THROUGH PARTICIPATE, Prime Cut Productions delivers a consistent Programme of Community Engagement throughout the year. Tailored Outreach Programmes are developed and delivered in conjunction with our Productions. We also run one special large-scale Community Engagement Production each year - working with a wide range community groups from across Belfast and Northern Ireland.
RE-MIX
Re-Mix is a PARTICIPATE project designed to provide access, participation and engagement opportunities in the arts, to those who might not otherwise have the chance and making sure theatre is accessible to everyone.
The team came up with a hybrid digital, drama, writing and AV project to enable 150 pupils to receive 5 workshops celebrating and exploring issues of Diversity and inclusion. Exploring where best they can have an impact and benefit to supporting schools in their curriculum, they decided that Key Stage 2 pupils would gain the most out of the project. With considerable regard given to the unique experience these pupils have within the UK educational landscape having just completed their “Transfer tests” which will, result dependent, stream each pupil into their future high school, either Grammer or Secondary. The focus of Prime Cut to use this project as an opportunity to support, explore and prepare students for the transitions ahead was imperative to the projects overall success.
Re-Mix is a digital-arts project by Prime Cut Productions in collaboration with Ulster University.
Starlite Stories
Prime Cut Productions partnered with Raduis Housing Loopland Fold and Radius Housing Inverary Fold, Fairholme Supported Housing and Forthspring Inter Community Project actively engaging with older people on a dance project.
Delivering a series of workshops with highly experienced dance artist Anthea Mcwilliams, the group shared stories and memories of their times in the old dance halls and jazz clubs in Belfast such as the Boom Boom Rooms, Starlite, Floral Hall and Sammy Houstons to name but a few.
Provoking and inspiring memories through dance, music and fashion leading towards having a professional dance portrait taken of them now in all their glory. Paul Duffy a professional portrait photographer captures the mood, the essence of dance, movement and fun in each portrait. A documentary was made containing interviews and footage of the dance workshops showing the fun and laughter had by all.
Through this and the workshops, the group shared their experiences of the community that they live in – both past and present, and the differences that exist between then and now.
Well Read
Prime Cut have been partnering with Northern Health Care Trust to deliver a new reading project called Well Read. This project was originally developed by the Playground Theatre Company in London and who delivered a ground breaking programme, taking place on the wards, for service users with mental health diagnosis. Prime Cut have been working with professional facilitators in a variety of mental health environments to deliver the Well-Read project and the engagement has been fantastic.
CLick below to read feedback from the service users, clients, and managers of teams within the board.
ENSEMBLE COLOURS
Ensemble Colours is a city-wide project between Prime Cut Productions and eleven Community Groups across Greater Belfast, utilising a variety of art forms including Drama, Creative Writing, Visual Art and Digital Art to promote Cultural Expression and Good Relations.
Supported through The Executive Office Central Good Relations Fund the project aimed to explore cultural diversity across the city through the lens of a common theme. In 2020-21, the theme was Colours – specifically, the impact of colour on our lives, both on an individual and societal level.
Throughout this project, we have been privileged to have met many amazing new people, heard so many beautiful, life-affirming stories, shared, learned and created.
PROCESSIONS
PROCESSIONS WAS A MASS PARTICIPATION ARTWORK MARKING THE CENTENARY OF THE REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT, WHICH GAVE THE FIRST BRITISH WOMEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE.
PRIME CUT PRODUCTIONS WAS ONE OF 100 ORGANISATIONS, INCLUDING 14 FROM NORTHERN IRELAND, WHO WERE COMMISSIONED BY ARTICHOKE TO WORK WITH WOMEN ARTISTS UP AND DOWN THE COUNTRY IN THE LEAD-UP TO THE EVENT, AS PART OF AN EXTENSIVE PUBLIC PROGRAMME OF CREATIVE WORKSHOPS TO CREATE 100 CENTENARY BANNERS. ARTIST BOBBI RAI-PURDY, WORKING IN COLLABORATION WITH 10 WOMEN’S GROUPS CREATED THE “ACTION EQUALS CHANGE” BANNER WHICH WAS ONE OF ONLY 10 OF THE ORIGINAL 100 TO BE SELECTED FOR THE UK TEXTILE BIENNALE AND THE PROCESSIONS COMMEMORATIVE BOOK.
REMOVED OUTREACH
To accompany our 2019 tour of Removed by Fionnuala Kennedy, we partnered, initially with Clanmil Housing and, subsequently supported by Arts and Business NI Barnardo’s NI, Home For Good, TUSLA, EPIC and VOYPIC to create a collaboration that would be impactful, affecting, that would effect change while being accessible and something that everyone would want to see. We wanted to evolve our practice. Clanmil wanted to engage in a more meaningful way with their clients and within their sector. Prime Cut wanted to deliver a touring project that would definitively prove the impact that art can have on society without any reduction of production values or artistic quality. VOYPIC, EPIC Barnardos and HFG all wanted to raise awareness of the issues currently around fostering and the Care System.
It resulted in the delivery of an Ireland wide series of workshops, talks, discussions and scaled down performances in venues as widely diverse as church halls to universities.
We have worked with prospective foster parents, trainee youth and social workers, professional social workers and the play has been performed as the closing event of the TUSLA National Conference 2019, the EPIC Care Day Launch (Limerick) 2020 and was scheduled to be performed to over 500 staff from across the 5 Health and Social Care Trusts in Northern Ireland over 6 performances in Spring 2020 (this has been postponed until after the pandemic). To date over 400 people have participated in workshops with close to 5 times that having seen the show and participated in post-show discussions.
The Revision Projects
FROM 2015 TO 2017 PRIME CUT, IN COLLABORATION WITH CREATIVE EXCHANGE AND OH YEAH MUSIC DELIVERED THE RE:VISION PROJECTS AS PART OF ARTS COUNCIL NI’S ARTS AND OLDER PEOPLE PROGRAMME. RE:VISION AND RE-VISION II UTILISED MULTIDISCIPLINARY ARTS TO ENGAGE WITH AND IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF OLDER PEOPLE IN RESIDENTIAL ACCOMMODATION ACROSS BELFAST.
THEY CULMINATED IN AN INSTALLATION DEVELOPED OVER 6 MONTHS WORKING WITH PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA, THEIR FRIENDS, FAMILIES AND CARERS AND A SHORT FILM OF THEIR EXPERIENCES. THESE WERE SHOWCASED AT THE ARTS AND OLDER PEOPLE SHOWCASE AT BEANBAG CINEMA AND AT THE LYRIC THEATRE AS PART OF 2016’S BOUNCE FESTIVAL OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS ON THE PROJECT HAVE BEEN BRUCE HOUSE, HEMSWORTH COURT, MULLAN MEWS GLENALINA LODGE AND SYDENHAM COURT.
IN 2020 PRIME CUT WILL DELIVER A THIRD REVISION – LIFE FROM TIME A 10 MONTH PROJECT RUNNING FROM NOVEMBER 2019-SEPTEMBER 2020 WORKING WITH 80 OLDER PEOPLE OLDER PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA AND THEIR CARERS, FAMILY AND FRIENDS ACROSS ANTRIM AND DOWN.
THE REVISION PROJECTS ARE SUPPORTED BY THE ARTS COUNCIL OF NORTHERN IRELAND, ARTS AND OLDER PEOPLE PROGRAMME.
ENSEMBLE VOICES
Ensemble Voices is the latest iteration of Prime Cut’s extremely successful Community Outreach Programme which has been running since 2013. In that time, with support from the NI Executive Good Relations Fund, Belfast City Council and Community Relations Council we have worked with over 2000 people from communities across Northern Ireland. The aim is to create a collaborative project between a range of groups and communities and ourselves to explore thematically the issues that are relevant and resonant within our society and to offer opportunities for people from a wide variety of backgrounds to get involved with and participate in artistic activity.
Ensemble Voices was delivered in partnership with over 100 participants from Atlas Womens Group, An Culturlann, Decorum NI, Dee Street Community Centre, Glen Community Centre, Include Youth, Inverary Community Centre, Knocknagoney Community Centre, Markets Community Centre and Orchardville Centre based in Belfast, Bangor and Lisburn.
The Ensemble Projects
Ensemble is at the heart of Prime Cuts Community Engagement work. We have delivered the Ensemble Projects across Northern Ireland since 2014, working with a range of community and voluntary organisations, exploring their views and opinions of their own communities, and Northern Ireland as a whole.
Participation in Ensemble is free and is open on a year-round rolling basis.
For further information contact BOBBI on 028 9024 4004.
The Revision Projects were supported by Belfast City Council, Community Relations Council and the NI Executive Central Good Relations funds.
pulse
Pulse was the culmination of Prime Cut’s Ensemble NI project, which saw youth and adult participants from across NI sharing stories of life within their communities. A common thread of this work was the struggle to find normality in a place still marred by the legacy of conflict, the divisions within our society and the difficulty of finding help in times of crisis. Pulse gave a glimpse into these stories through a multi disciplinary theatre event.
A theatre performance by participants of Prime Cut’s Ensemble NI project. Performed in Carnegie Library, OLDPARK
Funded by Northern Ireland Executive (Central Good Relations Fund)
AT ARMS LENGTH
At Arm’s Length is Prime Cut’s primary schools’ polyvocal diversity project, which sees children aged 3- 7 take part in fun creative workshops exploring difference and working towards the creation of a play that is performed in their school. Since 2017, 12 schools and 300+ children across Belfast and Lisburn-Castlereagh have taken part in drama, storytelling and puppetry workshops, collaboratively creating a performance that has been seen by over a thousand children so far.
At Arms Length is funded by Creative Europe as part of the EU Collective Plays Project, Belfast City Council and was seed funded and developed in collaboration with Lisburn and Castlereagh Council.
CHOICES
The "Choices" project worked alongside Greater Shankill Alternatives, looking at the influences experienced by young people, and decisions that they make based on this. The short film, shot and edited by Bluebird Media, was premiered at Greater Shankill Alternatives AGM and the Community Relations and Cultural Awareness week 2016, and is now a resource used to explore issues facing young people, and the impact that their decision making can have on them.
the journey to girdwood
Working with groups across North Belfast, Prime Cut Productions used Drama, Music and Visual Art as a means of exploring the hopes and aspirations of Communities around Girdwood, a previous Army Barracks. This contested space located between 4 different communities provided the opportunity for a shared space, bringing people together from different cultures and traditions.
NO END IN SIGHT
Prime Cut and Bluebird media created a short film, working with students from Lagan College after running workshops with them, exploring the issues around Hate Crime. The students discussed different types of hate crime, as well as any experiences that they had witnessed in their own lives, and from this created a short script, which was then filmed over a couple of days in Castlereagh. Following the production of the DVD, Castlereagh Borough Council and the Police and Community Safety Partnership have used this resource while working with community groups and schools, addressing this issue.
THE SECRET CITY
The Secret City is a culmination of The Stories of Us, a 9 month multi-arts collaboration with over 200 young people from across Belfast, and is part of the Cathdral Quarter Arts Festival 2015.
This vibrant, dynamic, physical performance is played against the backdrop of Bridges Urban Playground. It's their story, on their terms, in their city space. Prepare to be surprised - it might just be a little bit awesome.
KALEIDOSCOPE
A magical, multi-sensory experience that will redefine what Belfast means to you forever
Staged on the streets of Belfast, Kaleidoscope will allow you to encounter the city like never before. Choose where you go and what you look at as multiple stories weave around you, plunging you into the hopes, fears and daily lives of people from across the city.
THE BATHS
A new theatre production, which will give audiences a chance encounter with life in and around the Victorian Templemore Baths in east Belfast, will open to the public for a limited number of exclusive performances on Monday 7th May. The Baths is a community-led production involving people from the local area and is being created by leading Belfast theatre company Prime Cut Productions.
THE DEMETER PROJECT - STILL LIFE STILL
The Demeter Project - Still Life Still was a performance that was the culmination of a year long project designed and managed by Prime Cut Productions with our Partners from Ardmonagh Family Centre, Ardoyne Women's Group, Dee Street Community Centre and Newhill Community Centre. Bringing together women from the North, East and West of the City aged between 14 and 17 and over 55 this project examines the contribution of women over the past century to the life of Belfast. As well as performances , funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund has enabled us to give the project a legacy, creating an online archive as well as a physical archive at the Linenhall Library, in Belfast. This has enabled us to preserve the all too often unheard stories of how Women have contributed to building the incredible city of Belfast that we live in today.
