The festival aims to use creative arts with different groups around the community as a way for young people to explore and express themselves. The department were looking to employ a team of about 12 people to facilitate workshops and rehearsals with different groups, and then have performance evenings of all the work in July. They wanted two facilitators from each area, (Drama, Music, Singers, Dancers, Visual Arts, and Film).
I decided I would apply for this as it would be great experience either way, and obviously a massive bonus if I got the job. On the original information I was shown, it said interviews were to take place on March 14th, this date came and went and I heard nothing, so I just assumed I had been unsuccessful. But I received an email on the 3rd of April from the head of the Creative Learning department Ian Moore, inviting me to an interview the following week on April 11th.
I was shocked to have gotten this response, my track record with interviews is not great, and this was the first time I had applied for something which is actually in the sector of the things I want to be doing after I finish this MA.
The interview was to take place in the form of a three hour workshop session in which each participant would have a ten minute section to best show their skills and methodology. On reading this I was sent into a massive panic about what to do for this section, about whether they would be expecting an example of practical work you would facilitate with a group, or whether they would expect some kind of presentation on what you would hope to do throughout the festival. I was also stressed that I only had a week to prepare, and that it was the Easter weekend so resources at the university I might have needed to used would be a bit more difficult to access.
On this I thought it best to email Barbara and John, as once I had planned what I wanted to present I wanted to run it past someone to give me feedback on what I had prepared. Barbara was unfortunately out of the office until this week, but I managed to arrange a meeting with John for the Tuesday morning.
I then began work on what I would want to produce for the ten minute section. Drawing on what we had learnt in lectures with Janine Goldsworthy and Grant Mitchell I began planning a project proposal trying to make it as professional as I could, containing all the information I considered they would need from me. And planned it so everything would be ready to run if I got the job.
My Proposal contained the covering letter I had first emailed to the department along with my current CV, a page with details of the brief, and how I would aim to fulfil that, my skills, and the methods I would put into the process. The festival is being funded by the Bertarelli Foundation which is a family run entrepreneurial business which has connections in many different sectors, so I was sure to show in my proposal that I had spent time researching this company. I also included examples of three workshops, for different age groups, which were partly finished as research for my project, so I finished these and used the theme of Community for the theme for this proposal as well.
I planned a rough script of what I wanted to say on the day which was a guideline to the further information which would be provided in the proposal pack I would hand out. Part of me was becoming increasingly more concerned about whether to say what I had planned, or whether to just do a practical session. Ten minutes seems like a long time, but once it comes down to it, it is actually very hard not to want to say to much and go over time. I met with John on the Tuesday morning to discuss what I had prepared, and after we had talked things through and discussed a few interview techniques I was feeling more confident about the day, and about what I could offer them.
On arriving at the Victoria Hall at 10am on the Wednesday morning, I felt sufficiently prepared, but was still worried whether I should just do practical, so I decided to take on board what others would do then work out how much practical/ talking ratio I would use in my section. They informed us that they had already employed three practitioners out of the twelve they were looking for, which was going to make it even tougher to get a spot. Out of the people at the audition there were one duo of visual artists, four singers/composers, one movement and danced based person, and the other 6 or 7 people were all Drama practitioners which means that there was the least chance for us, and also we didn't know if any of three already employed were Drama practitioners which could of meant they were only looking for one person.
As the morning went on each person was showing examples of work they had done (visual arts), examples of how they would begin to compose songs with groups, and many of the drama people were showing mini taster workshops that they would do with groups using either a stimulus or theme. So when my turn came I presented the panel of three interviewers with my proposal pack and then showed examples of practicals I would do.
I started with two examples of ice breaker games I would do with a group, 'Liar, Liar' and 'The sun shines on'. I then went on to split the group into three teams and asked them to write down any words and phrases which came in their heads when they thought of the word 'Community', each team was given a few minutes then to pick a word and turn these into tableau's (frozen images), whilst the rest of the group took it in turns to guess what the other groups were portraying.
The day was a brilliant opportunity for me as I had not experienced anything like this before, and it also gave me a great chance to chat to other creative individuals and view the kind of work they do. I really enjoyed it and felt I had given it my all. They told us that they would be emailing us with the decision hopefully on Friday, but by Monday at the latest. By Monday I hadn't heard of anything so just assumed I had not been successful and that they were only letting the successful candidates know.
Whilst writing this blog I have received an email from Ian Moore with the results of the day. Unfortunately I have not been successful on this occasion. The email states that there was a high standard of work, and that they were impressed by everyone, and that although I was not lucky enough to get a spot it should not reflect the quality of the work I presented, and that the decision came down to the fact that they were looking to employ practitioners whose skills covered a wide range of specialisms and they chose who they thought was the best 'fit' for this festival.
Overall I am really glad I went for this opportunity, I have been able to gain valuable experience, and this is also how I found out about the InterACT opportunity blogged about this week, as I mentioned I saw the leader of InterACT on Wednesday, and this was because he was at the interview to, so all in all it was a good experience for me.
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