BRAVO! – ANOTHER ACCOLADE FOR THE LOWRY
The Lowry and Barclays Bank plc won the Bravo! Business and Culture award last week for the Best Community Investment Partnership, for their sponsorship of the venue’s major community production, Love on the Dole.
Committed to working with its local community, The Lowry embarked on a major project based on Walter Greenwood’s classic novel Love on the Dole, which was only made possible through business support from Barclays Bank plc.
Through a series of professional workshops in dance, drama, design and music, local people (adults and those aged 14+) were given the opportunity to form part of the creative process of bringing a Salford based novel to life. These ran from January through to Summer 2004, involving over 100 local participants from a diverse range of backgrounds, culminating in a week-long theatrical production in September 2004.
For the first time, Business in the Arts: North West and Arts & Business NW presented annual awards to recognise a diverse range of business and cultural partnerships. Bravo! combined the twelfth annual BIA: NW awards with three new Arts & Business categories, one of which was Community Investment Partnership, which was sponsored by Liverpool Capital of Culture 2008.
This new award identifies those partnerships which have best met the community objectives of the business and the arts partners. This new category acknowledges that business is increasingly aware that to invest in your community is to invest in your business. The arts offer a unique opportunity to contribute to the creativity of our society and can help businesses go to the heart of what it means to be an active corporate citizen.
This partnership won the award as it clearly met the objectives of both Barclays Bank plc and The Lowry. Barclays Bank plc wanted to support an arts project that had a real and lasting benefit to the community as well as actively encouraging staff to get involved in community activities. Similarly The Lowry wanted to work with its immediate community, and leave a legacy of professional arts skills in the local community as well as improve non-arts skills including listening, negotiation and communication.
The project had the added bonus of raising the profile of The Lowry's community work throughout the North West, particularly with a half-hour Granada TV documentary on the making of Love on the Dole as well as a prestigious Manchester Evening News Theatre award nomination.
Rachel Herbinson, Barclays regional community manager said: "At Barclays we are committed to communities and we are delighted to received this BRAVO! Award for our work with The Lowry. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to support the local community in Salford in such a different way.”
Arabella Guthrie, Sponsorship Sales manager, commented: “This has been a wonderful project for everyone involved in the development process as well as for the audiences seeing the final production. We are very grateful to Barclays for making this inspirational venture possible.”
If you would like to be involved in supporting a similar project, please contact Arabella Guthrie, on arabella.Guthrie@thelowry.com 0161 876 2041.
Posted on Tuesday, 10 May 2005 under Press General Press