4) Looking ahead - a gap in Inclusive Practice Training for young people and how this can be addressed!

Throughout the SCECS Module, the through lines of interconnectedness, sustainability and ecology have brought into sharp focus how I might arrive at my future practice as a singer/songwriter and how I might offer my skills, talents and generosity. I recognise that I am becoming less and less interested in an ego-centric performance practice that drives my creative output to generate income and assert myself as an artist. In hindsight, I have often found the context for this boring, stale, banal and not very sustainable at all – loopholes, exploitation and very unglamourous behind an Instagram sheen. This view has also largely been built by the intoxicating amount of ego that I have had to consume, embody, witness and quite frankly grumpily avoid, which has exhausted me to the point of change. Over the past few years I have been involved in a lot of performance projects, have toured internationally and have had my compositions and work played at various venues locally and nationally. I now find myself letting go of the desire to return to that context altogether. The essential question I have slowly been proposing to myself over the past few months is: to whom does this serve? As I look ahead, I challenge the notion of more (touring, travelling, selling) by replacing it with the non-pejorative and fulfilling aspects of what less could bring. This is a sobering but extremely important line of enquiry to uphold because now more than ever, our industry’s unique and fundamental place depends on it. I want to challenge the glammed up linear systems that disguise vulnerability, usurp pureness and chuckle at the words like eco-centrism within the music industry and its haughty and aloof hyper-reality and start to propose a list of achievable pathways that revolve around a circular model of practice – one that can unsettle and disrupt what it means to be successful and all of its fascinating, different, small but mighty versions.

I began a new job at the start of 2021 with inclusive music and dance organisation, Paragon Music. I am their SAMPLE Coordinator. It is my job to coordinate a new mentoring programme for young people aged between 14-18 who identify as having additional support needs or barriers to participation. It provides access to 6-months of person centred and person lead arts experiences which can give way to what a career in the industry might look like after school. It promotes the prospect that there is indeed a creative alternative for people and that a livelihood in the creative industries is a viable option. Here is the leaflet that I helped designed:

SAMPLE - Paragon Music .jpg
SAMPLE - Paragon Music P 2.jpg

Sustainability is about togetherness and also about looking forward. By leading the way in adopting good sustainable arts practices, a programme like SAMPLE will no doubt influence the community of young people it serves to aspire towards different, exciting and truly ground-breaking pathways. Paragon sustain this by offering the next step in mentoring with its in-house Horizons programme which is one of any pathways following the initial 6-month process on SAMPLE.

Paragon Co-Pilot

I would like to pitch a new Paragon programme called Co-Pilot which would provide a leadership opportunity to young people who would like to be framed as an emerging inclusive practitioner. This would be a 3-to-6-month opportunity for emerging inclusive practitioners who have come through the programmes and have a keen interest in experiencing what it’s like to be a practitioner but without the full Train and Play experience that Paragon currently offers to those who’d like to undergo practitioner training. It would be a step before this, essentially, for people who have been taking part in the workshops and have the desire to take the lead and test out their leadership ideas in a safe space. This would be a value based, person centred pedagogical initiative that gives people the chance to imagine a way forward.

I think this opportunity could tie together some of the experiences Paragon have currently been offering some people recently. We have tried out a micro-training last summer with one participant and another has been experiencing more of a group rep role recently. Paragon have also tailored a specific mentoring package for a mentee as they prepare themselves for the full Train and Play practitioner training. I think all of these are great examples of what this kind of programme could do to support people’s future aspirations and act as a supportive stepping stone pre-Train and Play or, for people to take part in further career development after the opportunity comes to an end. 

It could mean that we always include a Co-Pilot Practitioner with us in the sessions, who are, to use a mentee’s phrase, "learning as they are doing" with conscious support from the Paragon Practitioners involved. It may also mean that people are entitled to a fee which I think is a very welcome prospect for people as they build their work experience following school, college or otherwise and get to feel valued for their efforts. This would also address some of the concerns that were summarised in Creative Scotland’s Arts and Diversity Summary which I explored in the previous post. It perhaps isn’t an internship, but more of a tailored apprenticeship that could qualify Paragon’s role as place for anyone to truly develop their practice - in performance, socialisation and practitioner-ship!

Funding opportunities for this type of venture are becoming more visible. Future evolutions of the Co-Pilot programme throughout this year could potentially sync up with the government’s Kickstart Scheme, providing organisations the opportunity to employ more young people into their organisation:

The Kickstart Scheme provides funding to create new jobs for 16 to 24 year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long term unemployment. Employers of all sizes can apply for funding which covers:
- 100% of the National Minimum Wage (or the National Living Wage depending on the age of the participant) for 25 hours per week for a total of 6 months
- associated employer National Insurance contributions
- any relevant workplace pension contributions (automatic enrolment)(UK Government, 2021).

Other arts based organisations are starting to get on board with this Government funding policy such as 432 Events who have advertised a number of exciting new positions via their social media pages in conjunction with the Kickstart Scheme. Positions include

Assistant Promoter
Assistant to the Director
Marketing Officer
Community Engagement Officer
Funding Officer

It is important to differentiate these titles at face value with some of those Paragon have used in the past for young people interning or doing a college or school placement as a comparison:

Assistant Drum Tutor
Digital Development Assistant
Social Media Guru
Communications Intern
Dance Advocate

There certainly is an offer to be made more readily in response to the current context we are located within. A partner organisation of Paragon’s, Dumfries and Galloway Dance, have recently also devised Dance Advocates , which is a paid 6 month development programme (£75 per week) made up of local leaders aged 18-25 who are interested in pursuing careers in the performing arts. According to their site:

The programme explores progression routes into the arts sector, helping young leaders to advance into further training or pursue their own creative work.(D&G Dance, 2021)

This is the sentiment I wish to explore and engage with as I propose my own idea. So, with these thoughts in mind, here is my fledgling business plan to accompany this initial pitch. In order to see each page in better quality, click on each image to open it up on another page:

Pilot Business Plan Page 1

Pilot Business Plan Page 1

Pilot Business Plan Page 2

Pilot Business Plan Page 2

One political difficulty I am encountering is that the Kickstart Scheme policy concept can be interpreted as a means to achieve ‘more for less.’ As Catherine Needham summarises in her paper, “Personalization: From Story-Line to Practice:” 

through market efficiencies shaped by a political discourse of neoliberalism (Ferguson 2007; Lymbery 2014); and be no more than a cover for austerity and cost cutting (Needham 2020).

I will continue to be mindful of this when considering what language I choose when framing this kind of opportunity and be sure to remain faithful to Paragon’s Iconic Advantage that embodies socialisation and inclusion as core sustainable competencies.

In this age of accessible digital platforms that are enabling more and more people to be brought together, one thing that I need to be mindful of is the notion of meaning rather than bombardment when proposing this kind of programme. More than ever, the mirage of being popular can disguise quality and consequently promote mediocrity. Anecdotally, this seems to underpin some of the desires of young people who I engaged with at my last in-person project pre-COVID, whereby the young people taking with the exception of one expressed a desire to work towards becoming:

  1. An Influencer

  2. A YouTuber

  3. Famous

Theodore Adorno critiques this very notion in his “theory of pseudo-culture” a segment of which I have offered below from Robert Witkin’s book “Adorno on Popular Culture”:

Screenshot 2021-05-03 at 21.59.51.png

Complimentary to this perspective, the notion of seduction becomes paramount. The mediated world we are saturated within 

We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.
(Baudrillard, 1994).

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard is known for his theories regarding our postmodern society. In the 1980’s and the 1990’s in particular, he became fascinated by how the growth of the media has affected our perception of reality, and of the world. He concludes that currently we are experiencing “The Death of the Real” – that we are living in a society dominated by hyper real semiotics; connecting more and more deeply to things that merely simulate reality, instead of connecting to reality itself. The concept of hyper reality and its colourful simulated distractions has become more overriding in our society and is trampling on the very necessary need to tune into our human necessities. The growth and availability of social media has certainly affected young peoples’ perceptions of reality more and what a sustainable career pathway might look like - even within a field such as the arts, where so often “making it” is the capitalist mist. In his essay, “The Hyper-Realism of Simulation” with his book Simulacra and Simulation (The Body in Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism), Jean Baudrillard claims that the increase of signs and symbols in the media have become so frequent in our culture that: 

(…) reality itself, as something separable from signs of it… vanished in the information-saturated, media-dominated contemporary world. (Baudrillard, 1994).

In addition to my previous point, Baudrillard suggests that there is a reason why we have a deep connection with the media. To briefly elaborate, his essay, “The Ecstasy of Communication” discusses how the media has a seductive power, and he suggests that we surrender ourselves to the luminous eye of the screen. Online Social Networking websites and video games are perfect examples of such spaces of surrender. Following the seduction, comes a false sense of security. This is the context that I fear a lot of the young people of today are up against and one that I hope my proposed Co-Pilot programme can aim to dispel in an attempt to re-affirm what it means to be prosperous as an artist. A recent statement in The Economist reminds us of how the current COVID-19 context has informed our gaze into these uncertainties, connecting it with the very real and concurrent climate conversation:

Covid-19 has demonstrated that the foundations of prosperity are precarious. Disasters long talked about, and long ignored, can come upon you with no warning, turning life inside out and shaking all that seemed stable.
(The Economist, 2020) 

To conclude this blog, we absolutely have to safeguard a brighter future for the music industry and crucially, for our youth. I believe that the best place to start is with our young people and I’d like to think that my new role with Paragon Music can offer me that chance to set a precedent as I look to develop the new Pilot programme I have devised. I recognise a simmering, seething, anti-discrimination activism that is brewing within me. This is a pro-inclusion perspective that is eco-centric to the core. The planet can no longer support our consumption levels or current linear approaches to performance, production or economic practice within this context and it is time to get our act together with haste. I am concerned at how seductively false notions of success appear through the guise of the media in any form and we must dispel that kind of exclusivity. I wish that the offer I am proposing invites more and more young people to embrace the prospects of a circular, fun and efficacious pathway into the future, giving them a platform to thrive and shine.

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