Stepping stones

The Fuse Medway Festival is an international festival of outdoor arts and has become a much loved feature of life in the Medway area of Kent. It is an entirely free weekend of outdoor arts in Medway’s public spaces in June (this year 16-17 June), preceded by a week of activity.

It is funded by Medway Council, with a generous grant from Arts Council England. The enormous changes that have taken place in the area over the last 25 years mean that nurturing local artists is greatly important – their work binds together communities and has advantages for all. So it is unsurprising that schemes such as ours, which encourage new and emerging artists, are given priority.

Fuse Medway gives artists the chance to develop their work and showcase it at the festival. SPARK commissions are awarded each year to new, developing or established local organisations and individuals to produce work for the festival. Confirmed this year are grants to three young choreographers for a ‘River Walk’ project, and to another young artist for ‘Ri-zound’, a music project which includes creating a floating phonic choir.

The Sparky Initiative will produce a carnival style parade, marking the commencement of the festival. Local artists are working with students from the University of Kent’s Creative Events Course to create large scale carnival structures for the parade.

We are seeing a real expansion in Medway’s talent base. The festival and local artists have ambition to become one of the South East’s main arts hubs. To support this, we are launching a regional platform to take place during the festival. Open to programmers, it will capture the best talent that Medway and Kent have to offer, in a professional and supportive environment. Young companies will be given the opportunity to showcase their work, as well as meet and see each other’s work. Part of the initiative will be a range of professional development workshops and events, held in the run up to the festival, including one on integrating community input into events, led by No Fit State Circus’ Artistic Director Orit Azaz, and another on selling large-scale work in Europe.

Not all the talent that Fuse Medway nurtures is local. Students from London’s Central School of Speech & Drama (CSSD) come to Rochester to make and perform an improvised piece in the Castle gardens and other Medway open spaces. CSSD has been sending students to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall for years, as part of a summer project, and now they come to Medway as well. They gain valuable experience from performing at the festival; they are led by a core creative team of local Kent professionals, who also nurture their own national profile in the process.

We provide finance, hands-on experience and give emerging artists the chance to perform alongside the best acts from the UK and abroad. We believe we are beginning to build something really special. Artists are the life blood of the festival and of the future of the UK’s arts. What we are doing is good for artists, good for us and good for our communities.