Young people from Westminster are gearing up to showcase their short film themed around Damon Albarn’s ‘Dr Dee’ at the National Portrait Gallery next week.

The film, titled ‘Visionaries’, is the culmination of an exciting collaboration between English National Opera (ENO) and Westminster based charity, Vital Regeneration.

Over the past few months, Vital Regeneration has been working in collaboration with ENO to deliver a series of workshops to young people in South Westminster.

During these workshops, young people, of various ages and from a range of backgrounds, have come together to devise, script and shoot their own film in response to the themes within the ENO’s new opera, Dr Dee, written by Damon Albarn.

Angela McConville, Chief Executive at Vital Regeneration says; “It has been a real privilege to work with the English National Opera and having the film screened at the National Portrait Gallery is a very big deal for all the young people involved.

This has been an immensely exciting, challenging and ambitious project for Vital Regeneration, and we are terrifically proud of the young people involved, as well as the tutors, for all their hard work and dedication”.

The script for the short film came out of a series of improvisations around the ideas of magic, astrology, fortune-telling and power - all of which were features in the life of John Dee, the 16th Century advisor to Queen Elizabeth I.

Led by tutors Polly Graham and Simon Drew, the innovative course combined the performance and drama expertise of the ENO with the digital media experience of Vital Regeneration’s award winning FreqOUT! project.

As part of the programme, the young people also undertook the Bronze Arts Award qualification, providing a first step towards possible further arts study. 

This collaboration, between ENO Baylis (the learning wing of the ENO) and Vital Regeneration’s FreqOUT! programme, was run in St Andrew’s Youth Club in South Westminster and was funded primarily through ENO by Westminster City Council.

Notes to editors

For press enquiries, images and interviews please contact: rash@vitalregen.org

About Vital Regeneration

Vital Regeneration is a registered charity working to transform London's most deprived neighbourhoods.  They focus most of their work in Westminster where they develop social, environmental and economic programmes.  Their vision is for everyone to have equal expectations and opportunities in life and not to be seriously disadvantaged by where they live. 

About FreqOUT!

FreqOUT! is Vital Regeneration’s Catalyst Award winning project which uses the arts and emergent technologies to engage, give a voice to and empower local young people.

Through this programme, we knock down barriers, challenge cross cultural and intergenerational (mis)perceptions and enable people to express their ideas, views and concerns about their lives and their local issues.

FreqOUT! works with innovators, youth workers, digital artists, editors, actors, film-makers and audio-visual specialists to bridge the gap between inner-city life and the world of contemporary media arts.

FreqOUT! films and digital products are screened at London’s leading Cultural Centres which has included TATE Britain, Curzon Cinema, Serpentine Gallery, Lyric Theatre, Barbican and SW1 Gallery among others over the past 12 months.

During 2012 FreqOUT! aims to deliver 10 projects of around 30 hours in length to 100 disadvantaged young people, thus providing them with the skills to progress into further education or employment.

FreqOUT! is supported by the Vivendi ‘Create Joy’ fund.

Interested in what FreqOUT! Could offer to your organisation?

Vital Regeneration works in partnership with businesses like Hilton in the Community Foundation to help them achieve their Corporate Social Responsibility targets.  For more information on working with Vital Regeneration in this way please contact our Corporate Partnerships Manager, Emma Rembalski on erembalski@vitalregen.org.