Hackney Empire and Boy Blue to Collaborate on Community Celebration of East London's Young People

As Hackney Empire celebrates 120 years at the heart of the local community, and in the wake of the recent release of the 20 Years of Creative Futures Impact Report, Artistic Director Yamin Choudury and the whole team announced details of the latest large scale participatory event with the young people of East London, as part of the celebrated Creative Futures Programme.

On Friday 28 October, one hundred young dancers, artists, musicians and leaders will come together to express their joy, love and well-being with their community. Led by Hackney Empire's Artistic Director Yamin Choudury and Boy Blue's Co-Artistic Director Kenrick 'H20' Sandy MBE, Only Joy Aloud will be the culmination of a five-day exploratory process, to bring out the young voices of East London through movement and storytelling.

Young people aged 12 - 19 from across the area are all welcome to get involved, with applications via the website: here. Workshops will then take place at Forest School from 25 - 27 October, with the scratch performance taking place on the main stage on Friday 28 October.

Kenrick 'H20' Sandy MBE said, "Only Joy Aloud is an opportunity for young people to not only develop and progress in their creative endeavours, but also a space to appreciate and further understand social space and well being."

Yamin Choudury said, "It's a real honour to be collaborating with Boy Blue and Kenrick 'H20' Sandy MBE on this unique project celebrating young people from across East London. I can't wait to bring 100 12-19 year olds into Hackney Empire to showcase the stories they've uncovered during this five-day project on our main stage."

Since the first ADP - an intensive two-week summer programme where a company of up to 40 young people create a new piece of musical theatre performed on stage at Hackney Empire - was launched in 2002, Hackney Empire Creative Futures has used arts and creativity to break down barriers, build confidence and provide creative, professional and personal development for young people regardless of their background, education, income or experience.

Today, Creative Futures annually engages over 2,000 young people aged 12 to 25-years-old. From its inception, Creative Futures set out to reframe 'culture' by using art-forms that young people were already engaged in, including film, popular including acting for stage and screen, popular music such as British Rap and R&B, spoken word and dance. The theatre's unique model of youth engagement has impacted on over 20,000 young lives in its 20-year history.

In total Creative Futures provides an average of 20 hours of free youth programming each week across 45 weeks of the year. These include workshops and masterclasses alongside professionally produced training and performance programmes, all of which are provided free of charge to all participants.