Tag: Coventry University

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Capacity Building WS

The Friends Families and Travellers LabDay- Crystal’s Vardo

  • Date: 22 April 2022
  • Time: 10-11.30 pm UK, 11-12.30 CET
  • Venue: Online (Zoom)
  • Language: English
  • Recording on Youtube

Friends Families and Travellers have a long history of leading on trainings, campaigns, producing educational materials, curating artistic collaborations and working horizontally with Gypsy, Roma and Travellers.  In 2021 Suzanna King approached C-DaRE’s Rosa Cisneros to choreograph the dance portion of the restaging of Crystal’s Vardo, a piece directed by King herself. The piece was being reworked for camera and King was keen to develop certain sections and produce a teacher’s resource pack.  The two continued to collaborate and for the Yellow Couch Convos Podast Series, Cisneros sat down with actors and musicians involved in the new theatre production.

For this WEAVE LabDay Cisneros, King and actors and musicians involved in the production will sit down and discuss Crystal’s Vardo and the importance of such works to reflect on racism, bullying and the value of  generating teacher’s resources.  Participants will see excerpts of the work,  meet part of the cast, have access to the teacher’s materials and ask the team questions about how to implement this work in their settings.

Below the recording of the event:

MORE ON CRYSTAL’S VARDO :

The story is told through the eyes of Crystal, a young Gypsy girl who has been bullied at school.

Crystal is one among so many young Travellers who experience racist bullying at school and for this reason many do not continue into secondary education. Only through education and raising awareness can we address this issue and from this belief came the idea to write Crystal’s Vardo.

Through powerful and compelling theatre, Crystal’s Vardo weaves the histories and cultures of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities into one story. The aim of the play is to raise awareness of the persecution of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities through the centuries and to reflect on the ways this manifests as anti-Gypsyism today.

Crystal’s Vardo artistic vision is to:
  • raise awareness about the rich histories and cultures of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities,
  • influence and initiate change by inspiring empathy and compassion in our audiences,
  • affirm the cultural identity of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller people by exploring and celebrating the respective cultures and identities,
  • to inspire dialogue and break down barriers between communities.

Crystal Vardo’s Teaching Materials:

https://www.gypsy-traveller.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/FFT_Teaching-Materials-2020_v12.pdf

Quote about the film:

‘Everything about the film was excellent! Crystal’s reactions to the situations she experienced and people she met through time allowed the children to empathise with her and to understand how Gypsies, Travellers and Romani people have experienced prejudice, discrimination and persecution over the centuries.’

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WEAVE LabDay

Early Dance Circle Labday 

  • Date: 3rd December 2021
  • Time: 10-11.30 GMT, 11-12.30 CET
  • Online via Zoom
  • Language: English

Image: Screengrab from the CultureMoves Film created for the EDC Baroque Dance Module, courtesy of EDC / C-DARE Coventry University

COVUNI (Centre for Dance Research, C-DaRE) and the Early Dance Circle (EDC) collaborated to organise an Early Dance LabDay to present about the work the charity is doing across the UK, get a sense of the various periods they cover, gain insight into their online activities and also learn more about the content they are providing for the WEAVE project. The LabDay also revisited the EDC Baroque Dance MOOC developed under the CEF CultureMoves project.

For the Early Dance Module where a collaboration with the Early Dance Circle and Chalemie took place, the module provided an introduction to Baroque dance focused on its more formal couple dances, rather than its professional, stage and comedic (more virtuosic) sides, or its rich and various heritage of country dances involving sets of dancers.

The LabDay also explored how the EDC and the content provided to Europeana is opening up a conversation about the importance of historical dance and music  because of its relevance for engagement in historic buildings and other cultural heritage sites. The LabDay offered participants the opportunity to learn more about historical dance and join a conversation on the ways in which archival material can be reimagined in a modern context.

COVUNI, and in particular the Centre For Dance Research (C-DaRE), has long standing collaborations with dance archives, dance associations and artists and will facilitate the aggregation of high-quality curated collections from specific dance communities. Among those collections is the Early Dance Circle (EDC), an umbrella organisation based in the UK whose main aim is to promote the enjoyment, performance and study of historical dance in the UK and beyond, from the medieval period up to the end of the 20th century.

Formed in 1984 and including professional and amateur dance groups, artists and researchers, the EDC aims to make historical dance heritage accessible and has curated and organised many events over the last 35 years. The EDC’s ethos is that a knowledge of earlier dance forms helps enrich the cultural life of the UK and Europe by accessing a heritage of international importance that belongs to us all, but which has, until recently, been largely forgotten. 

In conjunction with the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE), Coventry University, the EDC will broker new connections with the historical and early dance community in the UK and beyond in order to safeguard and promote this marginalized dance heritage. The EDC is keen to aggregate to Europeana a curated selection of their content (historical dance videos), shedding new light on historical dance forms that have often been missing from archives. This is especially pertinent given dance’s traditional ontology as intangible cultural heritage, especially in (dance) performance’s oft-cited ephemerality (Phelan 1993) and in how dance practice and performance might resist and/or enter the archive (cf. Taylor 2003 ; Schneider 2001, 2011; Lepecki 2010, Brandstetter 2015 [1995], 2016). 

In particular, the work in WEAVE aggregating EDC content to Europeana will build on the existing relationship that COVUNI formed with the EDC during the CEF CultureMoves project. For CultureMoves, as part of the ‘Creating a Digital Heritage Community’ MOOC (massive open online course) developed in collaboration with the Kaleidoscope project, EDC collaborated on a historical dance module examining the relationship between early and baroque dance in heritage settings and digital storytelling (using the CultureMoves digital toolkit, and especially the MotionNotes digital annotation tool which will be extended in WEAVE). The partnership between C-DaRE and EDC in WEAVE will build on this exploration of the connections between tangible and intangible cultural heritage first explored in CultureMoves, considering relationships between dance as ICH, historical landmark settings as TCH, and how digital tools can enable deeper interconnections between these forms of ICH and TCH.

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WEAVE LabDay

Presenting Europeana

  • Date: 18th October 2021
  • Time: 11:00-12:30 CEST
  • Venue: Online (Zoom)
  • Language: English

This workshop engaged minority communities and Cultural Heritage Institutions to enhance their participation in Europeana. It was moderated by the Coventry University team in conjunction with Europeana and with collaboration of Photoconsortium and KU Leuven.

In particular, this event covered 3 main topics:

  • Introducing what Europeana is and why it is beneficial to share cultural collections in this environment and across the Europeana network of partners, stakeholders and followers
  • Understanding the copyright framework that is at the basis of Europeana and the labels which are included in the Europeana Publishing Framework, so to enable content partners find the best solution to share and showcase their collections in a lawful way
  • Explaining Europeana’s editorial strategy and publication formats to include partners’ collections, including engagement with Europeana audiences and stakeholders and the more specific WEAVE Editorials strategy. The LabDay included interactive moments such as small polls and Q&A time.
View the presentation HERE

Speakers: Alex Stan (IN2), Julia Fallon (Community & Partner Engagement at Europeana), Adrian Murphy (Collections Manager at Europeana), Ariadna Matas (Policy Advisor at Europeana), Sofie Taes (KU Leuven). 

Additionally, colleagues from Photoconsortium in its role of Europeana accredited Thematic Aggregator and from the Europeana Data Publishing team were available during the LabDay, to handle any possible questions which may arise from the participants about the more technical part of metadata sharing and aggregation-ingestion of content to the Europeana infrastructure.

Speakers’ biographies:

As Collections Manager at Europeana, Adrian Murphy develops ways of engaging audiences across Europe with the digitised cultural heritage collections found on the Europeana website. He works on participatory campaigns, audience communities and editorial strategies, as well as curating and writing editorial features such as blogs, galleries and exhibitions. Often working in partnership with cultural heritage institutions and consortia across Europe, he has worked on Europeana’s campaigns: Europeana Migration, Women’s History Season, Europe at Work, Discovering Europe and Europeana Sport. Prior to Europeana, he was the Digital Manager at south London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens where he led on digital strategy, website and social media activities.

Julia Fallon is the chair of the rights statements consortium. At Europeana, she is the manager of the Community and Partner Engagement Team – together we support the development of professionals and organizations working in and around digital cultural heritage. Together we lead the development of our digital programme & a knowledge hub of events, webinars and resources all supporting the sector in their digital transformation journey. Also passionate about supporting emerging professionals & advocating for inclusive and diverse conversations.

Ariadna Matas contributes to the management and development of Europeana’s policies and frameworks with a strong focus on copyright and supports their implementation throughout the Europeana Network. Ariadna studied law in Spain, in Germany and in France and has a Master’s in Intellectual Property Law. Before joining Europeana, Ariadna worked for the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) on copyright matters. Ariadna coordinates Europeana Copyright Community and Rights Statements Consortium. Ariadna is a member of: Creative Commons’ Global Network Copyright Platform, NEMO’s Working Group on Digitisation & IPR; Libraries and IP group at the Spanish Federation of Library Associations: ; Rights Statements Consortium Statements and Implementation Working Groups.

Sofie Taes is an alumna of KU Leuven (Belgium), where she graduated in musicology and Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Currently she works at the Institute for Cultural Studies (CS Digital) at KU Leuven and at Photoconsortium – Europeana’s thematic aggregator for photography – as a digital curator. She has curated a wide range of editorials and virtual exhibitions for Europeana as well as the physical exhibitions All Our Yesterdays, Thousands are Sailing and Blue Skies, Red Panic. Currently she is active in several European projects involving digital cultural heritage and user engagement strategies, among which Europeana XX: Century of Change, PAGODE – Europeana China, WEAVE and inDICEs.