THE AWARD WINNERS

Manchester International Festival (MIF)
Manchester International Festival is the world’s first festival of original new work. It launched in 2007 with 25 world premiers across a range of art forms by major international artists and attracted an audience in excess of 200,000 people. The second edition of MIF will open on 2nd July and will feature some 20 new commissions including Flailing Tees created by iconic visual artist Gustav Metzger and The Manchester Report, a public call for ideas to help develop a low-carbon blueprint for the future.

The LightSwitch Collective
The LightSwitch Collective includes writer and performer Lucy Foster recently seen in Improbable’s new show ‘Panic’ at the Barbican, Toby Jones of Frost/Nixon and W, artists Pete Harrison and Tim Vize-Martin of propeller performance company and producer Laura McDermott. James Cook, Producer of Radio 4’s ‘In our Time’ is an adviser to the project.

Project Phakama and Transition Town Tooting
In the Xhosa language Phakama means Rise Up!, elevate and empower yourself. Since its inception, and led by Director Fabio Santos, a programme of intense cultural training has resulted in a series of adventurous public performances by young people, leaving a legacy of networks and opportunities, including projects in South Africa and India. Transition Town Tooting was established in 2008 and is part of the Transition Town Network – a coherent framework for communities to explore the resilience required to mitigate the effects Peak Oil and drastically reduce carbon emissions to mitigate the effects of Climate Change.

Metis Arts
Metis Arts is a performing arts company/network, set up to pursue interdisciplinary projects using extensive research to engage with contemporary concerns, and to explore innovative forms of connecting with audiences.  Based in Cambridge the company’s previous work, The Bunker Project, explored hidden war spaces and Cold War rehearsals. Metis Arts is Zoe Svendsen, Simon Daw, Angel Brown, Carolyn Downing, Jonathan Goodacre and James Erskine

Major Road

Major Road was founded by Graham Devlin in 1974 to produce and tour new plays by emerging writers. The company moved from London to Yorkshire in 1978 where it expanded into a number of areas, including site specific and community productions, opera and young people's work. It toured plays across Europe and the USA, commissioned work from emerging writers, professionalised community participation and was always open to new ideas and ways of working. Many established artists and performers started their careers at Major Road and the company remained an influential force in British theatre for nearly 25 years.

With Graham's departure to become Deputy Secretary General of ACE in 1997 Major Road began to wind down its operations, and in the past three years the company has been looking for appropriate projects in which to invest. In 2007 the Board identified climate change as a priority for the company and agreed to explore the potential of a partnership with TippingPoint. This has resulted in the TippingPoint commissions and reflects Major Road's continuing desire to contribute to the future development of the performing arts in ways that are meaningful and relevant in the 21st Century.

The fund we have established with our remaining assets is only a beginning and we hope that others will join us to invest in this programme over the coming months and years. As TippingPoint has so amply demonstrated, climate change requires an imaginative, creative response alongside a scientific response and Major Road is proud to be part of such a process.