About us
The official Encompass website is now live. Please go to www.encompass360.co.uk to play with the web-cam kaleidoscope and upload your dance films or get more information about the project.
Encompass will connect young people all around the world. Using dance, digital media and film, the project will create links across continents and wrap dancing images around audiences. Different styles of dance will collide, merge and collaborate. Young people will be the core creative team, leading the vision for the project, supported by experienced professional artists.
In July 2011 the artistic team worked with a young creative team from William Brookes School on a pilot project. The young people involved took the film they created to the Coubertin Youth Forum in Beijing in August 2011. View the pilot film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTuPsBHpUtk
Encompass has several strands:
o an online project encouraging people to upload films of themsleves dancing, with dance tutorials in various styles created by professional dance artists.
o workshops with dance and digital media artists, encouraging young people to explore, experiment and create dance film
o artist residency at William Brookes School, working with around 100 local and international students
o short films edited from all content created through online and workshop activity, distributed online through social media and submitted to festivals and events
o large-scale site specific dance film installation event, culminating in a 360-degree dance film performance in the igloo dome.
Encompass is a collaboration between William Brookes School, The Edge Arts Centre and Shropshire Council Community Arts and Festivals Team. The artistic team working with these partners will be; Toby Norman-Wright (Artistic Director), Sonia Sabri (Dance Artist), Anna Belyavin (Assistant Dance Artist) The Hive Music and Media Centre and Igloovision 360-degree audio visual dome. William Brookes School is the UK's only Coubertin School and a specialist Performing Arts College. This project links to the Coubertin Schools around the world, inviting young people from these schools to be part of the project both through digital links on-line and through actual participation in the final performances.
Encompass is part of Dancing for the Games, which is inspired by London 2012 and part of the Cultural Olympiad in the West Midlands. It has been awarded a combined total of £190,000 by Legacy Trust UK, an independent charity set up to help build a lasting cultural and sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Arts Council England, Advantage West Midlands and Shropshire Council.
Dancing for the Games is part of the Cultural Olympiad in the West Midlands and is inspired by London 2012. It is a three year programme funded by Legacy Trust UK, an independent charity set up to help build a lasting cultural and sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Arts Council England West Midlands and Advantage West Midlands. Dancing for the Games uses the inspiration of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games to get as many people as
possible dancing across the West Midlands.
The Cultural Olympiad in the West Midlands is already touching the lives of thousands of people. To date some 347,400 people in the West Midlands have been involved in the Cultural Olympiad as audiences or participants, either as part of Open Weekend, the Inspire Programme, or through specific regional programmes. For more information about the Cultural Olympiad in the West Midlands, please visit, www.wmfor2012.com/culture.
Legacy Trust UK is a Principal Funder of the Cultural Olympiad and the
London 2012 Festival, and is in a unique position to help communities across the UK gain lasting and life-changing benefits from the 2012 Games. The
Trust has allocated £40 million of funding to 12 programmes in each nation and region of the UK and four national programmes. This funding will act as a catalyst to link grassroots activities across into the Olympic programme, so that people from all walks of life - not just athletes and sports fans - can be a part of this once-in-a-lifetime event. For more information on Legacy Trust UK please visit http://www.legacytrust.org.uk/.
Full project proposal: 
Encompass Proposal with pics (363.38KB)
