Future Fires is an innovative programme designed to empower young artists by giving them the opportunity to design and deliver their own project with a community that they are part of or who they feel a special connection to.
The five young artists involved have been responsible for every aspect of their projects from fundraising to outreach – they have undergone training, research trips and mentoring to develop the skills they need in order to make their projects a success.
The five projects are totally different working with a number of different communities including young people at risk, refugees, female asylum seekers, elderly people and young people using everything from spoken word, carnival, film and hip-hop to create work, share stories and learn new skills.
The first sharing of the work took place at the AfroLata Future Fires Celebration event in September and there were also further showcase events throughout the Autumn 2008 season.
Artists:
Samira Arhin-Acquah; age 23, spoken word and hip hop artist. At Contact she has been a member of Contact Young Actors Company, and was a performer-writer in Contact’s spoken word theatre production ‘I Hear Voices’. She was recently co-facilitator of Contact & QueerUpNorth’s queer Hip Hop project ‘Beyond the Box’.
Borhan Mohammedi; age 21, performer and director. Borhan is a Kurdish-Iranian refugee, who has been in Manchester since 2001. At Contact he has been a member of Contact Young Actors Company; he has trained as facilitator of the Drama Drop In programme and worked on the artistic team for the Arts United project which Contact ran for young refugees. Recently he was Assistant Director on the CYAC show Close Up and took part in the director training scheme ‘Live and Direct’.
Kelly Morgan; age 19, performer and choreographer. At Contact she has been a member of Contact Young Actors Company and has also worked as an assistant facilitator on Drama Drop In and as a choreographer on a range of projects.
Martin Stannage; age 22, writer and performer. Martin is experienced as a writer, spoken word artist and performer. At Contact he has been a Young Writer in Residence. He is one of the leaders of ‘Freestyle Mondays’ an informal weekly open session for local MCs and was a performer-writer in ‘I Hear Voices’. He also has experience as a youth worker.
Yusra Warsama; age 23. At Contact she has been part of Contact Young Actors Company, and has developed as a spoken word artist, recently touring with Apples and Snakes. Yusra was Assistant Director on CYAC show FreeFlow and is currently part of the Incubate programme.
