Heart N Soul Calling Card

1. About Heart n Soul
Based in London, Heart n Soul is a leading creative
arts company that believes in the talents and power
of people with learning disabilities. Our work is
about art, taking part, training and sharing.
We encourage experimentation by making an
environment in which people are free to express
themselves and take risks.
We support artists in developing their ideas, show-
casing their work in live, recorded and online formats.
We bring disabled and non-disabled artists together
in order to create and profile high quality work in
mainstream contexts.
Our goal is
to see a more
creative, fun,
equal and
open world
for everyone.
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2. Heart n Soul
has a 27-year
track record
in changing
attitudes
towards
disability and
transforming
lives.
We also run innovative participatory programmes:
Do Your Own Thing for young people with learning
disabilities and Allsorts for adults with learning
disabilities and support those who want to pursue
a career in the arts in accessing skills development
and training opportunities.
Our work reaches 30,000 people per year and
significantly more through particular projects, and
achieves national and international impact.
We receive strong support from a range of funders
including Arts Council England which funds us
as part of its National Portfolio, describing our
contribution to inclusive practice as ‘outstanding’.
Learning disability is represented at every level
of the organisation, from volunteers, steering
teams and staff to our board of trustees.
www.heartnsoul.co.uk
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3. Visionary use
of technology
has enabled
us to test new
digital forms of
collaboration
between
disabled and
non-disabled
people.
International ambitions
2012 was an exceptional year for Heart n Soul. We
extended our reach and raised our profile significantly
through participation in London 2012’s Paralympic
Games Opening Ceremony and the Cultural Olympiad
and in particular, through the Dean Rodney Singers,
a pioneering project which created a global band of
72 artists from seven countries including Brazil, China,
Croatia, Germany, Japan, South Africa and the UK.
Supported by an Unlimited International commission,
the Dean Rodney Singers combined online making
and sharing of music, video and dance with a live
installation at London’s Southbank Centre during
the 2012 Paralympic Games.
The project has changed how we look and think about
things, and revealed a new set of tools which have a
particular appeal for people with learning disabilities.
www.deanrodneysingers.com
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4. Strategic focus
Building on this, we are excited by the possibility of
further extending Heart n Soul’s work and approach
internationally.
Relationships seeded by the Dean Rodney Singers
provide a good starting point.
We are interested in developing our link with Brazil,
expanding our networks and creating the context
for projects and programmes led by and for people
with learning disabilities.
As a first step, we brought over some of the
Brazilian musicians we met in 2012 to perform at
The Beautiful Octopus Club at the Royal Festival
Hall in London including drummer Biu Bandeira,
above, a large scale inclusive multimedia club
attracting audiences of around 2,500 and the first
of its kind. Held in September 2013, the club was
inspired by the Dean Rodney Singers.
We are also
interested in
opportunities
around the
British Council’s
Transform
programme
and Rio 2016
Olympic and
Paralympic
Games.
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|Heart n Soul International Calling Card

5. Strategic focus continued
On the other side of the world, we are continuing
to talk to contacts in Japan about the possibility
of touring Heart n Soul artists The Fish Police to
Tokyo and other cities to promote their new album.
Within Europe, we are part of a Lifelong Learning
Programme: Grundtvig project, which is bringing
together Belgium, Finland, Iceland, Malta,
Poland, Spain, Turkey and the UK to deliver ART-is:
Inclusion and Self-development of adults with
learning disabilities through the performing arts.
The project will run between October 2013 and
June 2015, and involve exchanging learning,
sharing best practice and producing high
quality arts events.
The Fish Police
album launch.
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6. We also want to look at how we share some of
our models and approaches. Heart n Soul is very
experienced in working with young people.
Do Your Own Thing provides regular creative
sessions to young people with learning disabilities
aged 10 to 25. Participants are encouraged to
showcase their skills at our regular Squidz Clubs,
a pioneering nightclub designed especially for
young people with learning disabilities and their
families and carers and other events like
The Lord Mayor’s Show.
We also run an incubation programme for emerging
young artists, providing carefully structured and
bespoke support. Kali Perkins is just one of our
artists who has benefitted from this approach,
first from her singer-songwriting partnership with
musician Arthur Lea and most recently as part
of new band Too Hot For Candy.
Do Your
Own Thing
has provided
us with
opportunities
to spot
and nurture
artistic talent.
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7. Increasingly we are starting to influence social
policy. Allsorts, a programme that offers creative
experiences to adults with learning disabilities,
has been developed in response to changes
in the adult social care agenda and is being
supported with local government investment
funding.
We are also developing new models that
promote greater digital connectivity for people
with learning disabilities, creating tools that
enable them to express themselves and share
their ideas.
Our staff, particularly Mark Williams who
co-founded Heart n Soul, are highly effective
in engaging with policy makers at a
strategic level.
Allsorts,
The Body
Season.
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Lilly Cook from
Heart n Soul’s
Media Team.
We are open to working in different ways
and learning from our international partners.
We have a model of working which can be
adapted to work with a range of projects:
Develop, Support, Review. Below are a few
examples of how this might work:
Sharing our methods and creating a club event
Modelling an event on The Beautiful Octopus Club
enables many different strands of our activity to
be brought together including art, taking part,
training, production and communications. We are
interested in joining forces with partners to develop
clubs in other countries. This may involve an
initial residency during which a team from
Heart n Soul shares how they work with peers.
Developing partner-to-partner links
We are interested in developing longer-term
partnerships with like-minded organisations.This
might involve residencies, exchanges between staff
and artists, sharing learning and joint commissions.

9. Touring work
Having previously presented one of Heart n Soul’s
leading artists The Fish Police at the Lincoln Center
in New York, we are looking for further opportunities to
present exceptional work in venue or festival settings.
Digital collaboration
We want to explore the full potential of cutting edge,
accessible web technology and digital connectivity
to create a global community where people are
discovering new creative processes and sharing
ideas online.
Heart n Soul have been awarded Arts Council
England/Nesta digital Research & Development
funding to explore the expressive potential of existing
sound and music devices and how they can be
liberated and further enabled, for the benefit of
learning disabled people and other users.
Heart n Soul’s
new digital
project,
The Soundlab.
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We share our
way of working
so that we
can inspire,
influence and
empower
others.
Common characteristics outlining
our approach:
• Encouraging ownership among the communities
that we work with in different countries - artists,
participants and partners.
• Building an online Heart n Soul global community
through digital collaboration and connectivity.
• Using our events to show how we achieve
our vision.
• Being flexible in our ability to target specific age
groups and work across art forms.
• Creating opportunities to meet people to support
the development of longer-term relationships
and engagement.
We look to work with partners, individual artists
and organisations that share these values, and
want to work together to create genuine and
meaningful platforms for people with and without
disabilities to play and express themselves in
an inclusive and accessible environment.

11. Appendix
Countries and organisations that Heart n Soul
has worked with over the past ten years:
Brazil
Museu de Arte Moderna
Sao Paulo
China
Epic Arts
Croatia
Koncertna Dvorana
Vatroslava
Lisinskog
Germany
Station 17
Hamburg
Ireland
Soundscape Music
Project
Brothers of Charity
Galway
Japan
Parco
Tokyo
South Africa
Red Bull Studios
Cape Town
Turkey
Dreams Academy/
Social Inclusion
BandAyder,
Alternatif Yasam
Derneği
USA
Lincoln Center
New York
South Korea
SPAF Festival
Seoul
Bahrain
British Council
Bahrain
Luxembourg
Cooperations
Wiltz
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12. Partner countries and organisations involved
in ART-is, funded by the European Commission’s
Lifelong Learning Programmme.
Belgium
Cultureel Centrum
Leopoldsburg
Finland
Keski-Pohjanmaan
Opisto
Iceland
Sólheimar
Malta
Fondazzjoni Centru
ghall-Kreattivita
Poland
Fundacja
Autokreacja
Spain
Asociación Pro
Personas Con
Discapacidad
Intelectual
Turkey
Güroymak Zihinsel
Ve Bedensel Engellileri
Koruma Derneği
UK
Stay Up Late
and
Heart n Soul
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|Heart n Soul International Calling Card
The
ART-is
team.

13. If you are interested in our work and would like
to talk to us more, please contact us:
+00 44 208 694 1632
info@heartnsoul.co.uk
For more information about Heart n Soul visit:
www.heartnsoul.co.uk
@heartnsoulart
/heartnsoulart
Heart n Soul
The Albany
Douglas Way
Deptford
London
SE8 4AG
United Kingdom
Charity registration: 1023467 Company limited number: 2830733