Young People WOW Community in Blackall
On the 31st October this year, young people and adults from Tambo, Blackall and Longreach enjoyed the spectacle and fun of the Way Out West (WOW) event, coordinated by Human Ventures, and held at Blackall’s Memorial Hall.
Local bands, new musical collaborations and an extraordinary beatboxer from Tambo complemented the variety of dance, drama and film projections that filled the hall for an entertaining evening for over eighty people in attendance.
The night featured many highlights, with young people performing at their best. Young bands In The Mixture [formerly Safety Pin] and Minor Details had the crowd out of their seats. A percussion battle between young musicians Tyrone Doak from Longreach and Dylan Dolinski from Blackall and the amazing skills of beatboxer Justin Bailey from Tambo similarly induced frenzied cheers from those present.
A Day in the Life was a collaborative shadow puppet theatre and live drama performance delivered throughout the night in three acts, choreographed with projected scenes that had been assembled from images collected by young people during the week using digital video and still cameras.
“In fact, most of the content for A Day in the Life was produced from the outcomes of the creative arts workshops that young people participated in throughout the week leading up to Way Out West,” states program coordinator Steph Vajda.
“This included film and multimedia, drama performance and visual arts activities such as making the shadow puppets, decorating the set and making lanterns.”
Another feature of Way Out West was the Young Entrepreneurs Forum, which aimed to give young people and the wider community a taste of what is social enterprise, and tips on how to transform an enterprise idea into a viable project, event, or small business.
“The forum included an enterprise competition called The Pitch, “ continued Steph, “which asked young people to put together a short pitch for a social enterprise idea of their own which they had workshopped with us during the week prior.”
Budding young entrepreneurs Coen Wilson [Longreach], Carroll Nugent [Tambo], James Rawlins [Longreach] and David Goodman [Blackall] all entered the competition. Due to their passion and the impossible task of comparing and judging very different ideas, all of the entrants were awarded first prize and will be receiving their digital video camera very soon.
The Creative Pathways team hope to be back in the region early in 2010.
