project
SHARING OUR SKILLS
Conference
By Matthew Hellett and Sarah Watson
We have now had five meetings about the Conference project. Three meetings were in Brighton at Carousel and two were in London at Corali’s space.
We have been talking about:
· Planning the Conference Day at Brighton Dome on Monday 10th March 2014 – looking at the space and thinking about who will perform or show their art there
· How to get journalists and reviewers to see our work
· Looking about reviews about our work that has been in the press so far – and thinking what the reviewers are really saying or not saying – about how some of them are “sitting on the fence” when they talk about how good our work is
· How we take the negative things that people say about our work and how we try not to take this personally
· A name for our Conference project – and we will agree what it is in March 2013
· A job description for a website designer who will design our fabulous new website
So far our meetings have been different from our usual meetings – it’s good and exciting to work with other artists from other learning disability arts organisations. It’s nice to be working with other artists and talking what we all do and how we can even more people to appreciate and understand our work.
News From the Carousel Singers
The Live Arts Committee is the new committee at Carousel. The committee meets every month to talk about the Carousel Singers and plan for the future.
In February, the committee was invited to go along to the Friends Meeting House in Brighton for a meeting as part of the Use Your Voice project, to talk to people about Carousel. Harry, Iain, Stuart and Gayle from the committee tell us what happened….
This is us singing 'Stand Up'. We talked about what the Carousel Singers do together, a few of our ground rules, when we meet, where we meet and how people can join us.
This is me (Gayle) giving out information about Carousel.
And this is me (Iain) giving out information too.
We also listened to people from Interact, Spiral and the Supported Employment team taking about what they do too. It was a very important and useful meeting.
We now have our own Facebook page for The Carousel Singers so please find it and like our page.
Radio Shut Up and Listen
Recording a radio show with Saxon Mount School
Find out what happened when Francis and Claire from the Shut up and Listen Radio Show visited a group of aspiring musicians in a school near Hastings, to help them record their own radio show.
Follow this link to read their story and see pictures from the recordings.
Episode March 2013
Featuring new music by learning disabled artists from UK, Australia, Belgium and Czech Republic.
Episode February 2013
This month's Shut Up & Listen show is taken over by female DJs and music producers from Carousel's 'I Can DJ 2' course. After 10 sessions the DJs produced a mix of dancefloor music heard in this show. It also includes interviews with the course tutors
Episode January 2013
The only place on the radio to hear music made by artists with a learning disability. This shows comes from the Blue Camel Club at the Corn Exchange in Brighton where, 4 times a year, Carousel hosts a night of clubbing, DJs, live music and performance. Featuring interviews from clubbers, Djs and bands including The Flash Rockers, Sabien Gator and the Carousel Singers. Also, live session tracks from Beat Express
BEAT EXPRESS TRIP TO IRELAND
This is Ryan O’Donovan of Beat Express, with news on our newly released single ‘Trip To Ireland’. The song is based on the true story of last summer, when we traveled to Cork to give a performance alongside selected learning disabled artists from all over Europe. Since this was quite a special song to us, I wanted us to try something a bit different instrumentally. I listened to various Irish folk music to give me the idea for a tempo that would sound similar and emulate that style. I even included a guitar solo that resembled a flute being played, in order to add to the authenticity.
Recording the song was a great experience too. It wasn’t recording in rehearsals this time for us. We were spending a whole working day at Brighton Electric Studios. In addition, we found out our producer was Dan Swift, who has worked for the likes of Snow Patrol and Kasabian.
The single is now released as of the first Blue Camel Club of 2013, with the inclusion of Modern Life which we played at the event itself.
Visit www.shutupandlisten.org.uk to order your copy of Trip To Ireland.
SHARING OUR SKILLS
Carousel Conference Project
Presentation in Bristol on 15th November 2012
by Matthew Hellett and Sarah Watson
The learning disability led arts organisations from the South West area that we gave our presentation to were:
· The Open Storyteller
· The Misfits Theatre Company
· JUMPcuts film company
· Firebird Theatre
· Artists First
We talked to them about the Conference project that we are working on together with five other learning disability led arts organisations from London and Brighton. This Conference will be held at Brighton Dome on Monday 14th March 2014, and our Conference Committee of artists with a learning disability is in charge of planning and putting on the Event. We are making a website as part of this project so that people around the world can be involved if they want to be (and we hope that they do!). As part of our presentation, we asked these five key arts organisations in the South West if any of them would like to work together to put on an Event during 2014 that will link into the Conference in Brighton. You can see what we did on our conference blog site here: http://www.qualitycarousel.tumblr.com/
At the meeting The Misfits agreed that they would lead on this project in the South West, together with The Open Storytellers and JUMPcuts. Firebird Theatre and Artists First want to be involved with the Event in some way, but can’t commit to being part of a group that plan the Event yet. It’s very exciting! We loved it! And they loved our presentation as well as the Conference/Event idea. Our presentation was serious and it had some jokes in it, too. As soon as we have more information about what they are doing, and how we will be working with them, we will let you know! 
This is a picture of all of us after we had our meeting at The Misfits base in Bristol.
OSKA BRIGHT
Come and look at our great video.. share
it with your friends!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZDX26uHxuk
Oska Bright On the Road
It’s been a busy time for Oska Bright On The Road, we went to
Zinc Arts in Ongar, Essex: http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/Oska_Bright_On_The_Road?item=1573&itemoffset=3
Interact Theatre in Newbury: http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/?location_id=348&item=1563 and
Embrace Arts in Leicester: http://www.disabilityartsonline.org.uk/?location_id=348&item=1599
We were also part of the Cornwall Film Festival, in Newquay:
Hi it's Sarah and Adele here, this was our first time working together On The Road. We have been to the Cornwall Film Festival at the Lighthouse Cinema in Newquay. The venue was brilliant, accessible and the staff were friendly and helpful. We screened in the afternoon to a mostly non-disabled audience, it went well, it was nice to be in a proper cinema! After our screening we checked out some of the rest of the festival – the animated shorts were brilliant! We did think that the screening was a bit long though, we think our screenings of half an hour are just right. It was great to be part of a film festival with a mainstream audience. We met some interesting film-makers and we really hope to get more films from Cornwall entered into Oska Bright 2013!
SHUT UP AND LISTEN
NEW SHUT UP AND LISTEN CD OUT NOW
Four of our Shut Up and Listen bands have been working extremely hard to create a new CD, which was released at the Rock House on Tuesday 20th November. It is called SUPER DANCING CLUB NIGHT CREATURES and features brand new songs by Fuzzbomb Band, Sabien Gator, Flash Rockers and Dancing Rock Queens.
Buy your copy now from the Shut Up and Listen! Shop or at the Blue Camel Club on 10th December. 
I CAN DJ 2
by Chris (a.k.a. DJ MONKEY BOY) and Robbie (a.k.a. DJ IVON)
Over the last ten weeks we have been tutoring Jolene, Fran, Becky, Holly, Lizzie, Cossi, Laura, Adele and Charley on the I Can DJ 2 project. We have been learning to use lots of different equipment to create our own music and visuals and working towards the performance that we did last Friday. We have really enjoyed working with the group and have been really impressed by the music that the new DJs have created.
Laura MacGowan attended I Can DJ 2 and we asked her how she had found the project: “I learnt how to make a sound and to make it sound nice [for the song] and to choose music that I liked to make my own music…Thank you very much for letting me come to the DJ course, it has been great fun to see and meet new friends. It has been really nice, so thank you”
The music, photos and videos that were created by the newest Shut Up and Listen DJs will be available to download from the Shut Up and Listen website very soon.
RADIO NEWS
Shut up and Listen Radio Room at the Blue Camel Club The Shut up and Listen Radio Show has been busy at the Blue Camel Club. We have setup a recording room where we interview bands, DJs and clubbers.
We are going to try and record a radio show at every club. Anyone who wants to be on the radio can come and talk to us in the radio room, which is near the main entrance to the club. You can choose music to play on the radio, and introduce yourself.
You can also meet bands and DJs from the club and ask them questions. Come and join us at the next club, and sit on our interview sofa. You can hear what the Blue Camel Club sounds like by listening to the November 2012 edition of our radio show, which was recorded at the September Club. http://to.ly/hvhy 
Some of the regular bands and singers at the Club have been recording session tracks for us in the Radio Room. You can watch them play and ask them questions afterwards. We will put videos up online. To see more pictures and videos from the Shut up and Listen Radio Room – go to our Tumblr website: http://shutupandlistenradio.tumblr.com/day/2012/11/20/
CAROUSEL SINGERS
In October, we had the first meeting of our new Carousel Singers steering committee. 
WHO ARE WE?
We are a small group of members of the Carousel Singers. At the moment, there are 6 of us – Ryan, Matthew, Gayle, Julie, Alan and Iain
WHAT DO WE DO?
We meet at Community Base once a month to talk about ideas and make plans for the Carousel Singers. We think about what we have already done and what we would like to do in future. Now that we have performed our last Gold Run show, we are thinking about what our next big show will be like.
WHAT ARE WE DOING NEXT?
At the moment, we are learning new songs to perform in December at Carousel Christmas Cracker on the 8th December, at The Blue Camel Club on the 10th December and at the Brighton Dome on the 15th December.
We are also planning a trip to go and see the Lost and Found Orchestra perform at the Brighton Dome in December which we think might give us some good ideas.
WHAT DO WE WANT?
We want the Carousel Singers to have as many chances to perform as possible. We love singing and dancing and we want to be the best we can be. Maybe one day the Carousel Singers will go on tour.
