Streetwise Live

The engine room of the operation and perhaps the most important area of our work is Streetwise Live, a programme of workshops and related activity in homeless centres around the country. This programme involves the following services:

• Weekly music workshops in homeless centres
• The Streetwise Choir
• Concert presentations and open workshops
• Theatre trips
• Rural Retreat
• Residencies
• Work Placement Scheme

Although the annual productions receive the media attention and public awareness, it is our weekly sessions and related activities where the majority of our work takes place. For our participants, this programme is a constant, reliable activity to look forward to every week of the year - a safe environment where they can participate, experiment and be creative. The programme is designed to not ony cater for different needs but also to progress participants gradually into more independence from workshops to theatre trips and performances (more engagement with the community) to work placements where participants are given opportunites to develop skills through individually-tailored work experience.

Workshop at The Passage (Photo: Camilla Panufnik)

Weekly Workshops
A programme of 500 workshops per year - one per week in homeless centres in London, Luton, Nottingham, Newcastle and Middlesbrough (see links on the left for times and places of the workshops).

These one-and-a-half or two-hour singing and acting sessions are open to anyone who wants to come with no auditions and involve a variety of music from classical to pop, jazz, folk, rap and world – we often work on material written by the participants themselves. The workshops are heavily supported by staff from the homeless centres who often work alongside participants long-term and perform in concerts and our annual productions. The sessions are facilitated by professional musicians who are trained by the Streetwise Opera Head of Workshops through a rigorous three-part training scheme. Many participants get involved singing straight away but others take more time – for them, we encourage them to stay in the sessions and be our audience members or help the workshop leaders direct the other performers, thus including everyone at all levels.

The Streetwise Choir
Hon Patron, Jonathan Welch
We are delighted to announce the start of the Streetwise Choir. The choir is based at the new Crisis Skylight Centre in Newcastle and has been designed with the help of our Hon Patron, Jonathan Welsch who has started two very successful choirs in Australia, The Sydney Street Choir and the Choir of Hard Knocks in Melbourne. The Choir of Hard Knocks has received incredible public acclaim in Australia; their latest CD reached no 10 in the charts and they have recently performed three sold-out shows at the Sydney Opera House.

Concert Presentations and Open Workshops
Throughout the year, our weekly workshops work towards the performance of informal concerts and Open Workshops. We perform around 20-30 of these events annually and with a wide variety of stars from the music world – e.g. the folk singer and fiddle player Eliza Carthy, the rapper Pace, the pop-star Darius and the baritone Ashley Holland. We perform at a variety of events such as the Labour Party Conference, Arts and Business Awards, homeless agency AGMs and conferences and outdoor festivals. We recently performed at LSO St Lukes with a law firm starring alongside young homeless people.

Theatre Trips
Around once a month we take groups of participants to the theatre and concerts. These events are very popular and have included trips to see Madame Butterfly at ENO, Chitty-Chitty Bang, Bang, The Importance of Being Earnest at Oxford Playhouse, Billy Elliot and Tosca at the Royal Opera House.

Bore Place in Kent, home to our annual retreat

Rural Retreat
Once a year we take a group to an organic farm in Kent to have a break away from their urban environment. We work on various activities in the farm and run singing and acting workshops.

Residencies
Although it is important that we have a long-term legacy and relationship with the 10 centres in which we currently work, we also want to work with new groups and are in demand to roll-out our work in homeless centres around the UK and beyond. We have found that if we work for short periods of time with new centres and new participants (one-two weeks), the need for follow-up work is greatly reduced. These short 'residencies' have taken place in a variety of settings since 2006 such as homeless centres in Boston (USA) Ipswich and in London. 

In an exciting collaboration with the Booth Centre in Manchester, the Royal Northern College of Music and the Whitworth Art Gallery, we are organising a residency in eary 2008. Based on the Whitworth's exhibition involving William Blake, the residency features an informal 'sharing' on 27 February. Let us know if you'd like to attend. 

Work Placement Scheme
The Streetwise Opera Work Placement Scheme is creating tangible, long-term support for participants through bespoke work experience with arts organisations around the country. 

Each placement is individually designed to reflect the needs and aspirations of the participant and focusses on positive change. Therefore for a few participants who are ready for work, the placements can be a spring-board to employment. For other participants, perhaps with long-term health problems or learning difficulties, we are sometimes able to offer a first opportunity to go into the workplace - this then helps participants engage more with the community and enjoy more independence and confidence. All participants gain practical benefits through learning new skills, gaining interview practise and strengthening CVs. 

Many of our participants find they are discriminated against when looking for work as a result of having a criminal record or because of their learning needs or age. This Scheme is therefore a very powerful method of brokering work relationships for participants, many of whom would never have such opportunities.

Placements include office or outreach work, backstage, crew or technical work and front of house/ushering.

Arts companies with whom we have collaborated include:

1st Framework
BBC Three Counties Radio
Battersea Arts Centre
English National Opera 
Ladder to the Moon
Magdala Opera
Monster Productions
Music at Oxford
National Maritime Museum
National Network for Arts and Health
National Theatre
Northern Stage
Nottingham Playhouse
Oxford Playhouse
Oxford Contemporary Music
Pegasus Theatre, Oxford
Photographers' Gallery
Royal Albert Hall
Royal Court Theatre
Royal Opera House
SouthWestFest
Theatre Royal, Newcastle
The Sage Gateshead
Victoria and Albert Museum
ViVA Orchestra 

T: 020 7495 3133 | E: admin@streetwiseopera.org | www.streetwiseopera.org
Reg charity no: 1092931 | make a donation (through justgiving.com)