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WOULD you like to support an initiative which can both “change people’s lives and enrich the Island’s cultural offering”?
This is the question which Jersey Arts Centre director Daniel Austin and marketing manager Nick Carver are asking local businesses as they get ready for another year of performances, workshops and educational events.
Indeed, as the Arts Centre celebrates its 43rd anniversary this year, Daniel and Nick stress the importance of corporate sponsorship to the charity, which aims to “educate, inspire and encourage debate”.
“Both audiences and performers have an inspiring time at the Arts Centre and involvement with the arts changes people’s lives, the way they think and their commitment to the community,” said Daniel.
“Corporate sponsorship is essential because it enables us to bring more professional productions to the Island and expand the range of opportunities we can offer.”
While sponsorship opportunities are available for any budget, there are two key events which Daniel and Nick highlight.
“Our playdays Children’s Festival will take place for the third time this summer, while we will be staging our 11th Community Christmas Production at the end of the year,” said Daniel.
A “celebration of work for and with children”, playdays, they say, is a “festival about play, adventure and discovery” which touches thousands of Islanders.
“We usually see more than 3,000 attendances at the ticketed performances for playdays, with at least 1,000 engagements on the streets of St Helier,” said Daniel. “As well as the performances and street theatre, the festival – which this year will be opened by our youtheatre – also includes a number of workshops and courses.”
And these workshops do not take place just within the Phillips Street building.
“Our programme goes out to all primary-school children in the Island, and we would love to secure enough funding to roll it out even further, as a big part of our mission is education and making theatre accessible to everyone,” said Nick. “Through our work with playdays and the Education and Outreach Department, we also run weekly workshops for students from Mont á l’Abbé School, and we are hoping to create a piece of theatre with and for those pupils as part of this year’s playdays festival.”
Of course, it is not just at the children’s festival that accessibility and inclusion are important factors.
“We regularly hold relaxed performances and British-sign-language-interpreted performances, particularly when we have a longer run of shows,” added Nick.
This, he adds, includes the Community Christmas Production, which brings a classic children’s tale to the stage. Over the years, these shows have included The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, The Sound of Music and, most recently, The Red Balloon, which was based on the 1956 Oscar-winning short film.
“The Christmas production goes into rehearsal in September and is a professionally produced show involving local adults and children, which attracts thousands of audience members each year,” said Daniel.
“As part of our education and outreach programme, the themes of each show are explored in workshops across the primary schools.”
Whether Islanders are interested in music, drama, poetry or dance, the arts, as Daniel sums up, bring a huge amount to everyone involved with them.
“They generate confidence, knowledge and a sense of commitment, as well as passion, focus and discipline,” he said. “The stories that are told are engaging and enchanting, and if you introduce young people to theatre and visual arts in any form, they will take that with them throughout their lives and it will add a sense of balance to everything that happens in the world.”
For more information about sponsorship opportunities, email jordi@artscentre.je.
