Without Walls Further Invest in the Development of Outdoor Work Through Blueprint Scheme

As costs continue to increase in all aspects of our lives, funding for the arts is more important than ever to allow artists to create new works and continue to challenge the status quo. Without Walls' Blueprint scheme is designed to support R&D costs of new outdoor touring work. It celebrates innovation and looks to expand the possibilities of what outdoor arts can be.

2022 sees 10 recipients of the Blueprint scheme announced with a mixture of established and new companies desiring to develop new approaches to making work. The artists and companies selected this year are: Tit for Tat with Knights of Sir Kuss; Out of Order with Standing High; Little Lost Robot with The Uncommons; Jennifer Jackson with Nickie Miles-Wildin and Kat Joyce with A series of attempts to take up space [Working Title]; Chad Taylor with Closer to my Dreams; DARKFIELD with BRILLIANT [Working Title]; Bureau of Silly Ideas with Pedal Powered Silly Sideshow: The Water Cycle; Inspirate with Ancient Giants; Bangla Folk with Jatra Theatre [Working Title] and Patrick Ziza Dance with Domesteeque.

Putting health and well-being at the core of the design process, Little Lost Robot make immersive, digital and installation artwork about minority groups. Their new work The Uncommons explores 'Commons' as defined as 'The cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, these resources are held in common, not owned privately'. The project is a reactive, robotic environment that responds to movement and has a layered audio narrative.

Bureau of Silly Ideas has noticed that with everything going on in the world, we have stopped talking about our favourite topic - The Weather. Combining eccentric machinery, absurd theatre and carnivalesque audience participation, The Water Cycle gets us talking about the environment and water as a finite resource. Domesteeque from Patrick Ziza Dance also explores water, an environmental issue that is being felt all over the world. It mixes the concept of the western Town Hall meeting with Ziza's Rwandan childhood memories of his community's local public meeting space and creates a Dandy-style celebration of colour, flamboyance, theatricality and community.

A collaboration between Jennifer Jackson with Nickie Miles-Wilding and Kat Joyce, A series of attempts to take up space is a playful and surreal outdoor show where a group of disabled and pre-disabled women will make increasingly bigger attempts at being visible in public spaces. With a tone of playful radicalism and ingenious theatrical engineering the work hopes to interact with buildings and landscape. Closer To My Dreams from Chad Taylor is a new piece of Hip-Hop Dance Theatre for families; using an urban aesthetic, it is an emotional journey of two brothers as they forge their way toward independent maturity. The piece grapples with the pressures on young black British men to perform certain roles.

Circus Theatre company Tit for Tat believe in making the ordinary become extra-ordinary in a celebration of the eccentric and the absurd. In Knights of Sir Kuss four bedraggled knights attempt to teach us about the importance of chivalry and honour in modern society, interrogating the ever-thinning line between bravery and stupidity. Also pushing the boundaries of circus are Out of Order who will develop Standing High - a show about what happens when everything goes wrong. Featuring a flying piano and combining circus, dance and theatre, Standing High is about finding your way through chaos by being able to rely on others, a daring yet heart-warming story that is suitable for children and adults alike.

Ancient Giants from Inspirate is a battle between good and evil; two enormous puppets dance around an outdoor space interacting with the audience in a street theatre show, which will leave everyone in awe. It introduces Indian cultural learnings authentically into an outdoor arts setting. DARKFIELD's BRILLIANT [Working Title] is about curiosity, adventures, exploring the unknown and what the future holds for us all. Utilising the vivid imagination of young audience members and their signature use of containers, darkness, sound and sensory effects, BRILLIANT [Working Title] will explore how darkness can be an exciting place to dream and imagine, rather than something to fear. Jatra Theatre [Working Title] from Bangla Folk will be an outdoor show that will bring the feel of a South Asian Mela to audiences in the UK with the sounds, colours and stories of Bangladesh. The show will bring together learning to practically investigate the form of Jatra, a Bengali folk-theatre historically performed outdoors with live music resembling the form of a Mummers play or pantomime.

Without Walls have already announced the 17 artists making up their 2022 programme whose works will be seen across the organisation's co-commissioners and incredible festivals partners including Brighton Festival, Hat Fair, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, Salisbury International Arts Festival part of Wiltshire Creative, Timber Festival, Certain Blacks - Ensemble Festival, Just So Festival, DaDa Festival and Greenwich+Docklands International Festivals (GDIF) with support from 101 Outdoor Arts.

Maggie Clarke, founding member of Without Walls, comments, Here at Without Walls we are aware that more than ever financial support is vital for those in the arts. The recipients of the Blueprint scheme continue to challenge the status quo and we are incredibly proud to support the development of trail-blazing outdoor arts. We are committed to further investing in companies that create news ways forward and we cannot wait to see how these projects unfold over the coming months!

Since its formation in 2007, Without Walls has developed and toured over 200 new shows by UK companies and supported the Research and Development of 75 projects. Their core programme and various partnership schemes bring together some of the most exciting new companies and street artists making vital work for the public space.

To post a comment, you must register and login.