PAN.OPTIKUM are the lead partner in People Power Partnership. They are an outdoor theatre company based in Freiburg, Germany. Here’s a little more info about them. 

“PAN.OPTIKUM sees itself as a collective of artists which for years now has been dedicated to interactive forms of theatre and music theatre and intentionally seeks to bridge the gap between the genre of action theatre and subjects taken from literature, classical theatre, opera and art. 

The performances feature artistic and visual effects and make for a special experience for the audience, who are integrated in the proceedings to as great a degree as possible. 

Founded as a street theatre ensemble in 1982, the group has retained the ideas and objectives of that time with the profile of theatre with simple opportunities for participation for social classes which are as heterogeneous as possible.” 

You can read more about them and their work by clicking here.

Creative Europe is the European Commission’s framework programme for support to the culture and audiovisual sectors. Here’s a little video about what they do.

Over the next two years, North East Lincolnshire Council’s Grimsby Creates is providing a unique opportunity to transform Grimsby into a vibrant town centre where heritage and creativity are enjoyed.  

This will enable the development of events and showcasing of world class acts with a scale and ambition never been seen before in Grimsby. 

Grimsby Creates is funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and administered by Arts Council England as part of the Cultural Development Fund (CDF). 

As part of the Grimsby Creates Creative Programme, in partnership with Magna Vitae, an exciting and ambitious opportunity (this project!) has arisen for local people in Grimsby.   

Absolutely! We want to fully reflect the communities of Grimsby and we welcome applications from all backgrounds. If you share our enthusiasm for dance and hip-hop culture, we’d love to hear from you. If you require additional support at auditions and throughout the duration of the project, we are more than happy to work with you to arrange this. Just let us know when you sign up for auditions and we can make suitable arrangements. 

As this project is part funded by the Grimsby Creates programme, we want to make sure that we offer these eight places to people living, working or studying in NE Lincs. However, if you’ve attended a place of education in NE Lincs in the last 2 years, you can also apply. 

Once we have recruited our team, we can discuss the best way for us all to stay in touch throughout the project. If WhatsApp is the method everyone prefers, then we’ll use that! However, anything official will need to be sent over email. 

If you’re selected, we’d love for you to be part of the project for the whole duration, however, life changes and plans change too – we get it. We’ll be in contact with you throughout the project and if needed, we’ll work with you to try and find a solution. 

This is a physical theatre project, so you’ll need some movement experience. This can be from a variety of dance techniques, practices and genres including ballet, contemporary, circus, breakdance or even acrobatic experience, anything that shows us you can express yourself using your body. 

You’ll be creating and learning new choreography with Pan Optikum which will be in a hip-hop style. 

Luckily for us, the whole project is being delivered in English. This means that during auditions, rehearsals and performances, everyone will be speaking English – yay! However, you will be working with other young people from 11 different countries, and they’ll probably be speaking their native language to each other, so you might pick up a few words along the way! 

We are always checking in to see what the most recent guidance is for travelling abroad. We know things can change quickly, but at the moment, international travel is due to open up again after 17th May which is why are auditions aren’t until the end of May. 

Once we have selected our team and we’re due to travel, we will ensure that, first of all, we are allowed and it is safe to do so, and secondly, that our team feel comfortable. If you don’t want to travel abroad (which we completely understand might be the case) then we’ll work something out. We’ll make sure you’re still involved with the experience, even if it’s virtually. The most important part of this project (for us) is that you’re involved in the performance in Grimsby in September.