Updated information coming shortly.

Opera Circus 25th year:
 
In 2016, Opera Circus will have been active in some form or another for 25 years.  We will find a way to celebrate this as part of TCFT at the University of Bournemouth this summer, from 1 – 14th August.  Billy Alwen, from Cirque Bijou, will lead the facilitation and help to create an explosive final performance for all involved which will include the local communities in Dorset. 
 
Opera Circus has had many ups and a few downs, but the company, and charity, is finding an interesting and rich path in building its work with our youth led activities as well as exploring emerging young international artists through Naciketa’s journey.  We are invested in simplifying our processes, keeping our administration lean and efficient and reflecting back to the organisation the aims of truth, freedom and equality that the youth led work radiates.  We are also interested in learning how digital technologies can advance our network and support the building of our global community as well as our virtual office.
 
What has emerged through the work this year is the immense capacity of young people to empathise with others, their interest in creating a global community, their curiosity in other cultures and in 99% of the cases, their understanding and tolerance of difference, be it gender, race or ability.  I have been moved and amazed by their generosity, courage and hope for what is a difficult and unsafe future. They are impressive and an example to us all.
 
This leads me to the Four Towns Youth Initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, now called Network Domino.  Ljubisa Surlan, a young man from Srebrenica, decided last year that some of the young people from his town had been lucky in having so much international attention as a result of the Bosnian war. He said that as a result of the significance of this town there had been many trips, activities, peace programmes and cultural opportunities, whereas other young people in other towns had had nothing.  He wanted to share the skills that he and others from his town had learnt.  So 3 towns were chosen, we ended up with 4 in total, to take part in a 10 day long programme of work led by young people with a small number of artist/facilitators to support them. 

Visigrad, Tuzla, Jelah and Srebrenica took part with over 40 young people participating from other towns, and audiences for their final performances of over 500.  Jelah welcomed all to their Rastok Fest music festival which was reciprocated in Srebrenica with the Silvertown Shine Music Festival.
 
This led to a second period of work in Visegrad in late October and early November, to provide support for the young people of this town in their bid to be recognised by their institutions, to start their own NGO, which they have begun, and to provide a continuous programme of activities for children and young people. The OSCE in Foca helped to provide a presentation platform with the local institutions and has offered to help develop relationships with the local Municipality.
 
We travelled from Visigrad to Sarajevo to attend meetings and for some of the young people to participate in the European Parliamentary Delegation on BiH and a working lunch with leading NGO’s and MEP’s. Julie Ward MEP was significant in helping to organise this.
 
We also visited OKVIR, an organisation supporting the LGBT community through Forum Theatre and therapy, and Mozaik who are offering support, training and opportunities for fund raising.  The OSCE in Foca and Srebrenica are involving the young teams in workshop opportunities and looking for ways to support their step by step development as local youth leaders. 
 
We were also pleased that Mrs Rebekah Wigemark, the wife of the new European Ambassador to BiH, came to Visegrad for the day to take part in activities and listen to the stories of the young people. We were also joined by Will Richard, Head of Office of the OSCE in Srebrenica who is being particularly supportive.  We would specially like to thank Andy McGuffie and Maja Stojanovic, from the European Commission, who worked tirelessly to source some vital funding from the EC to help cover our basic costs. Without them this small, but important, linking project would not have happened.
 
In all cases the young people are intent on ensuring that they extend their safe cultural spaces to other young people of all religions and ethnicities including minorities and those of all genders. 
 
I would like to congratulate them on their courage and commitment.
 
The numbers of participants and partners is increasing in TCFT and we need to explore with support and advice as to how we can manage ourselves in the future; is there an existing model we can follow or do we need to invent something new? Deloitte’s have taken us on this year as one of their charities to support with consultation and advice and hopefully they can help us with this.  We also need to look at our capacity, very stretched, and develop a virtual production office to share information quickly and efficiently.
 
We, meaning everyone we work with in TCFT, and not just I, were honoured this year to be nominated by Clare Moody, MEP and awarded the European Citizen’s Prize 2015.  This was for our work in Europe in upholding the values of the European Union and working together to fight against prejudice, racism and develop inclusion and equality in everything we do.  I was unable to attend the presentation in Brussels and Nemanja Zekic and Milena Nikolic, both friends and colleagues from Srebrenica, accepted the Prize on our behalf. They did a wonderful job. Thank you both.
 
We were also amazed to have our very own MEP, Julie Ward, in Srebrenica during the TCFT project in August.  Julie, as an MEP, has responsibility for Culture and Arts and Bosnia and Herzegovina, so we were very lucky to have her with us and to lead discussions on Youth Activism and the EU. In addition we were very pleased that the Head of Mission and Ambassador to the OSCE in BiH, Jonathan Moore, came and discussed youth issues with three youth leaders and the British Ambassador, Edward Ferguson, came and spent a day with us. 
 
A few people were critical of the way we invite diplomats and European leaders to come and spend time with us, but they have an important role to play.  It is hardly ever about funding but about advocacy and ensuring we have a voice at any table that is discussing the work we and others do in using culture and the arts as a very powerful tool to develop a peaceful and an economically and socially vibrant society.  It also provides time for young people to have a voice with those who often decide how they can live their lives…it is vital that youth activism is encouraged.
 
In Italy in 2017 we plan to have a 3 day Policy Makers seminar in which the most important learning from TCFT can be delivered by young people to those that make policy across wider Europe.  Those who work in isolated bureaucracies need to know how life is lived by most of us and what needs to be addressed and changed. It is also a way forward for Europe to have much more involvement of young people. They are going to be our leaders in the future.  Too many white, old, rigid, be-suited men run Europe and this needs to change. It is not representative of who we are. 
 
There will be an update shortly on the TCFT web site. Meantime we fund raise, meet, research and plan. 

There will be separate update about the new chamber opera we have commissioned from Nigel Osborne, composer, and Ariel Dorfman, writer, Naciketa.

There are some smaller discussions and partnerships in development, including an invitation to participate in a bid from the city of Timisoara for Cultural Capital City in Romania in 2021 and a possible Italian process involving Matera and maybe Bari.  Along with Ravenna and Sarteano, Italy seems to be a favourite destination of ours at the moment. 
 
We hope that your year has been as free as possible from disaster and conflict and that working together through the power of culture and the arts and a commitment to human rights, equality, freedom and truth we can find a way to turn the world around and begin to make something better of what we are as human beings.  In my journeying around the world over the last 24 months I have met artists, facilitators, teachers, farmers, refugees and even businessmen and people from the military who want to change society from being a less greedy and destructive form to something that works and supports all.  We have a long way to go but step by step, individual by individual it will change. We have to challenge the destruction of our environment along with climate change and the power of corporations, market forces, violence, poverty and inequality.  We can do something about this.

​I have just returned from a special week in Bucharest, invited to attend the Opera Europa conference, 18 – 21st November.  Our meeting rooms were in the magnificent opera house in the city and our hosts welcoming as you would expect from this deeply cultured country. 
 
There were 246 people from 32 countries, many of the major opera houses and arts festivals from around the world and it has given me much to reflect on, not least the place of opera in our lives and also its reputation and lack of diversity.  It was good to acknowledge the innovation and inventiveness of small scale companies and how we lead in many areas of education, facilitation, use of digital technology and diversity, out of necessity if not a much greater freedom and flexibility…I don’t include the struggle for funding in this statement!
 
People in general were very open and interested and we have made a couple of excellent contacts for future collaboration.
 
Thanks to Nicholas Payne for this inspiring visit.

​Naciketa, a new contemporary opera with music by Nigel Osborne and libretto by Ariel Dorfman, is now planned to premiere in 2017.  We can’t give a complete picture of the premiere and performances as yet, but will look to provide as much information as we can in the early spring. 
 
A simple page of description is on this web site http://www.operacircusuk.com/naciketa.html
 
We are delighted to welcome Sam Brown as our Director of the opera in its final stages and we look forward very much to working with him. 
 
During the year we have had many meetings and discussions with the Ravenna International Festival of Music, Italy, The Alchemy Festival as part of the Southbank, Poole’s Lighthouse, the University of Bournemouth and the Ashoka University in Delhi, India.
 
We have been hugely helped by the International Arts Producer, Gillian Newson and by ATER in Emiglia Romagna led by Francesca Zitoli.  
 
As a reminder of where we started with Naciketa, here are two commissions led by the great Scottish guitarist and expert on Indian Music, Simon Thacker. These were the exploratory pieces for the opera and gave Nigel Osborne, composer, the time and space to create the musical landscape for the opera.

The Birth of Naciketa   
Fire Agni

In 2016, Opera Circus will have been active in some form or another for 25 years.  We will find a way to celebrate this as part of TCFT in Bournemouth this summer, from 1 – 14th August.  Billy Alwen, from Cirque Bijou, will lead the facilitation and help to create an explosive final performance for all involved which will include the local communities in Dorset. 
 
Opera Circus has had many ups and a few downs, but the company, and charity, is finding an interesting and rich path in building its work with our youth led activities as well as exploring emerging young international artists through Naciketa’s journey.  We are invested in simplifying our processes, keeping our administration lean and efficient and reflecting back to the organisation the aims of truth, freedom and equality that the youth led work radiates.  We are also interested in learning how digital technologies can advance our network and support the building of our global community as well as our virtual office.
 
What has emerged through the work this year is the immense capacity of young people to empathise with others, their interest in creating a global community, their curiosity in other cultures and in 99% of the cases, their understanding and tolerance of difference, be it gender, race or ability.  I have been moved and amazed by their generosity, courage and hope for what is a difficult and unsafe future. They are impressive and an example to us all.

This was part of an inclusive performance in Srebrenica celebrating the end of the TCFT project in August of this year, beautiful work led by young artists along with Diverse City and others.
 

​What has emerged through the work this year is the immense capacity of young people to empathise with others, their interest in creating a global community, their curiosity in other cultures and in 99% of the cases, their understanding and tolerance of difference, be it gender, race or ability.  I have been moved and amazed by their generosity, courage and hope for what is a difficult and unsafe future. They are impressive and an example to us all.

So much to write about and so much progress.  The Complete Freedom of Truth project's first year in Srebrenica was transformative for nearly everyone that attended, be they partners, Ambassadors, professional established artists or emerging young artists and all the young participants.  The best thing I can suggest is that you read the web site set up by our young IT team with 95% of the content being written by youth participants from 7 different countries - Italy, UK, Serbia, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Portugal and Georgia.  To get a real feel of the work please read the blog as well as the creative evaluation, designed by Irina Maria Ganescu from Romania with support from Shaniqua Benjamin and Rory Newbery amongst other young writers, film makers, photographers and activists.  http://thecompletefreedomoftruth.com    

At the youth centre in Srebrenica - our host venue where breakfast, debates and performances were held.  

Erasmus + , an EU funding stream run through the British Council in Wales, has part funded a two and a half year process of cultural and arts activity, with 12 partners from 7 countries.  All information can be found on the web site.  The programme for 2016 is in the UK, full information to follow shortly and in Italy in April 2017.  Funding willing, there will be a second phase of the work finishing in 2019/20. We would like to thank the Arts Council England and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe for their on going support.