THE TIPPINGPOINT COMMISSIONS
The TippingPoint Commissions is a major new project to develop a critical mass of performance-based work conceived in the context of climate change. Launched in February this year TippingPoint received 178 proposals from across the UK proving the hunger and vitality of artists wishing to introduce audiences to the radical and imaginative thinking necessary to contemplate and inhabit a world dominated by climate change.
On June 30th, at the National Theatre, London, The Rt. Hon Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change announced 4 awards:
Manchester International Festival (MIF) (£30,000)
The TippingPoint Commissions and the Manchester International Festival will work together to explore the commissioning of a major new production. This new co-commission will enable the chosen artist to draw from scientific expertise and reach of TippingPoint and, working in dialogue with Manchester communities, evolve a new work which would hopefully premiere at the Manchester International Festival in 2011.
The LightSwitch Project by the LightSwitch Collective (£15,000)
“What happens when you switch on a light”. This simple question provokes a myriad of answers and sparks a million more questions. It generates excitement. The LightSwitch project will seize this microscopic moment and create a performance that connects the individual to the implications of their actions and their place in the world. The LightSwitch Collective includes award winning film, TV and stage actor Toby Jones.
Trashcatchers’ Carnival by Project Phakama UK (£20,000)
Working ‘from the ground up’ the Trashcatcher’s Carnival will unite 60 artists and over 500 Tooting residents in a year long process looking at transition from a high energy to a low energy community. Working in partnership with Emergency Exit Arts and using art, carnival, celebration and the collective ingenuity of Transition Town Tooting, Trashcatchers’ Carnival will provide a large-scale promenade on the 2010 summer solstice and model of engagement and celebration for the Transition Town Network.
Third Ring Out by Metis Arts (£15,000)
At once a performance, a game, a simulation and a radical artistic event THIRD RING OUT uses the disaster movie genre to scenario plan our future. Shipping containers become emergency planning centres where audiences are invited to immerse themselves in a multi sensory, simulated climate changed world rooted in scientific fact. Coming to an urban space, a village green or a festival near you…in summer 2010.
The proposals were selected by a panel including:
Nick Starr, Executive Director of the National Theatre
Graham Devlin, Chair of TippingPoint and former Secretary General of the Arts Council
Maresa von Stockert, Choreographer
Cecilia Wee, Writer, Curator and Broadcaster.
Advice and support was gratefully received from John Ashton, the UK Foreign Secretary’s Special Representative on Climate Change.
All 4 projects will have the chance to work with leading scientists from the TippingPoint network to underpin the process of creating these new works.
Philip Pullman, Patron of the TippingPoint Commissions says:
“Artists of every kind have one overriding moral duty, which is to do their work as well as possible. But since that work partly consists of responding to what the world itself is up to, it would be strange if the best work being produced didn’t take some account, in some way, of what’s happening to our climate. Art is not only about beauty: sometimes it has to warn.”
The awards are made possible through a generous award from Major Road. The company was an influential force in British theatre for 20 years and created national productions up until the mid 1990’s.
For further information on Major Road and the award-winners see here.
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