New Stages Postgraduate Festival
Now in its third year, and growing each year, New Stages is a two-day postgraduate platform and festival of new work, scheduled in 2009 for March 6th and 7th. There is now an established overall template for the event with interactive panels, workshops and discussion fora, coupled with the showing of new work by students across the Faculty. The website for last year’s event evidences the scope of the festival with some twenty artists listed (both PGT and PGR) from three Schools in the Faculty, three international key speakers, and two workshop leaders. For more information, please contact Dr Jonathan Pitches, j.pitches@leeds.ac.uk

The Post-Punk Project
Our intention is to develop a music and performance-based project at the School of PCI in October 2009. The proposed title of this one-day conference with follow-on events is “Post-Punk: the alternative eighties in Britain”. The purpose of the project is to explore notions of ‘alternative’ performance in the post-punk era, circa 1978 – 1989. The ‘indie’ music scene of this period will serve as a lens through which to view core themes of liveness, fashion and visual identities, iconography, youth cultures and socio-political context. For more information, please contact Alice Bayliss or Dr Phil Kiszely on a.bayliss@leeds.ac.uk or p.kiszely@leeds.ac.uk

Down Town Dance
Down Town Dance consists of two city based projects taking place over two years, each drawing on ideas which spring from reactions to moving through the city of Leeds, and the vibrant youth and arts culture it exhibits. In the spirit of the cultural initiative ‘I move therefore I am’ ( part of Yorkshire’s Cultural Olympiad programme) , which runs for four years, Down Town Dance will explore varied understandings of the moving body framed through the socio cultural landscape of the city and in conjunction with the UK’s aspirations for London 2012 to act as the springboard for change. For more information, please contact Dr Fiona Bannon, f.bannon@leeds.ac.uk

Documentation and Dissemination of DARE
The objective of the project is to assemble, collate and analyse the documentation of the DARE collaboration between the University of Leeds and Opera North. An accessible repository will be created to support the underpinning knowledge transfer conception of the partnership and its sustainability beyond the formal contracted period. For more information, please contact the Head of School, Susan Daniels, s.m.daniels@leeds.ac.uk

Graduate Company Incubation & Mentoring Scheme
This proposal is designed to respond to the growing interest among students in forming arts-related companies following graduation, building on their experience of and particular skills in collaboration and ensemble approaches to making work. Each year, the School of Performance & Cultural Industries (PCI) receives increasing numbers of requests for support from embryonic companies in the initial months of their operation. We have been able to provide limited support in kind including studio/rehearsal spaces, loans of equipment and – most particularly – the provision of advice from staff in consultancy roles. For more information, please conatact Dr Tony Gardner, t.p.gardner@leeds.ac.uk