Dear All

Apologies for any cross-postings - this is interesting!

Best wishes

John
----- Original Message -----
From: "Blackwell Ian" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2004 11:33 AM
Subject: Future Histories Archive


FUTUREHISTORIES
FREE ARCHIVE WORKSHOPS

About FUTURE HISTORIES
FUTURE HISTORIES is a cultural heritage organisation and a national
repository for African, Caribbean and Asian performing arts in the UK.
Established in 2001 by its founders, Dr. Alda Terracciano and Ameena M.
McConnell (at the time co-ordinator of the Black Theatre Forum), FUTURE
HISTORIES developed from an initial archive project devised by Dr.
Terracciano to re-assemble, preserve and make accessible for study and
research the Black Theatre Forum archive.
Created to acquire and maintain archives of African, Caribbean and Asian
performing arts, FUTURE HISTORIES aims to preserve, share and celebrate this
area of British history and heritage. Its Board of Directors is committed to
keeping the traditions of black performance alive by:

 CREATING & MAINTAINING AN ARCHIVE
To acquire, preserve and catalogue archives to ensure the dissemination of
the history of African, Caribbean and Asian Performance and Carnival in the
UK and facilitate access to these resources

TRAINING
To create and promote career development opportunities in the cultural
heritage sector, in particular for people of African and Asian descent and
to encourage the entry of African, Caribbean & Asian people into the
archivist profession, seriously under-represented amongst the BME community,
by establishing a Traineeship.

 EDUCATION
To stimulate access and critical reading of black British history amongst
wide and diverse audiences, particularly amongst the young

INTERPRETATION & ACCESS
To widen access to this area of British history and collaborate with
national and international educational institutions, producers and arts
practitioners

About RE-MEMBERING ASIAN PERFORMANCE Project
Re-membering Asian Performance is a FUTURE HISTORIES project in
collaboration with the A2A Central Team supported by the Heritage Lottery
Fund. It is the only cataloguing project of its kind to participate in the
Access to Archives (A2A) programme - the English strand of the National
Archives Network in the UK.  The project aims at preserving, cataloguing and
making accessible the archive of the motiroti theatre company. The full
catalogue and selected digitised archive items will be accessible on line
via the A2A website www.a2a.org.uk - as part of the National Archives
programme which supports FUTURE HISTORIES commitment to ensuring that wider
access and visibility is given to this under-represented area of British
theatre history and culture.
The project will also produce free workshops specifically targeted at medium
scale performing arts companies that produce work relevant to people of
Asian and African descent in the UK These companies are therefore primarily
responsible for preserving and celebrating heritage in the form of arts
archives. Representatives from arts companies - these could include Tamasha,
Tara Arts, Yellow Earth, Para Active, Man Mela, and Kali theatre companies
in London; ACE Dance Company, Sampad and Union Dance Residency, Peshkar
Productions in Birmingham; Rasa Productions, The Funjabis and Midland Actors
Theatre from Wolverhampton; production companies such as UK Arts
International and LIFT, Black Arts Alliance in Manchester, and individual
artists such as Kully Thiari from the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, Max Alder
from Zion Arts in Manchester, etc. - will be invited to take part in a one
day workshop/seminar. The workshop will provide an introduction to the
practicalities of organising and storing an archive. Participants will have
hands-on experience of:
·       selection of suitable material for an archive
·       best preservation techniques for different formats of archival
material
·       cataloguing and description of video/film and photograph archives,
oral history and web based resources as well as traditional paper media
·       how to make archival material available for use

The workshop will be supported by a dedicated handbook including a portfolio
of specialised heritage competencies: use of archival material for
development of educational activities in schools, colleges and universities;
curatorial assistance to exhibitions; promotion of African and Caribbean
performance history in local communities through direct access to the
companies' archives.

The workshops will be repeated in a selection of English cities (London,
Leicester, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Bristol) in order to maximise
the number of participants and offer skills to an audience as varied as
possible.

TO CONTACT US:
To book a place please contact Annette Telesford, Project Administrator at:
FUTURE HISTORIES c/o Computer Aid Building
Studio 433, 433 Holloway Road
London N7 6LJ
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: 020 7281 3709