Artist Development is hugely important for us at Baseless Fabric. We believe in our casts, creative teams and workshop practitioners reflecting our audiences and participants in our local area in South London. We recognise that classical music and theatre have traditionally been white, middle class art forms and we want to try and ensure that everyone who experiences our work as a participant or audience member sees themselves reflected in and feels inspired by our work.
As well as always trying to cast with an eye on ethnic diversity, we aim to have ethnic and gender diversity in our young people’s and elderly workshop teams where possible. As such we run Skills Sharing Workshops for workshop practitioners to give an insight into our way of introducing opera to young people to develop the skills of talented workshop practitioners who may have never worked in opera before or would yet feel confident enough to do so. At our workshops, in partnership recently with Southwark Playhouse and previously with Lost Theatre, we have met brilliant workshop leaders new to opera who have now run several of our recent projects including our Opera Taster Workshops and After School Opera Club.
“Once I used to look at opera in one very structured way, but now I am thinking of all the possibilities. I was blown away.”
“Thank you so much for such an inspiring afternoon. Thank you for making it so warm and inclusive, and making us all feel welcome wherever we had come from.”
We are excited to providing further Skills Sharing Workshops in 2024 as part of our The Elixir of Love programme of work funded by the Arts Council. If you’re interested in getting involved please do get in touch!
