The Leaveners
The Leaveners is a Birmingham-based arts charity, which offers a unique, high-quality programme of arts-based workshops, projects and events that explore issues relating to human rights, the environment, social justice, peace and spirituality. The charity draws upon contemporary Quaker values to guide and shape their projects and events, with the aim of inspiring meaningful conversations about such challenging issues.
Current work
Leaveners runs projects on themes as Peace, Social Justice, Ecology and Spirituality. Using various art forms, such as drama, singing, poetry, visual arts and stop motion animation, Leaveners aim to inspire and open up conversations between people of different backgrounds. Recent projects included drama workshops on conscientious objection, exploring militarization, a poetry archive on Displacement and singing sessions on 'Building Bridges'.
History
Founded in 1978, Leaveners have a rich history, which includes Quaker Youth Theatre, Quaker Music Making and Words, Signs and Vibes.
Quaker Youth Theatre
Quaker Youth Theatre (QYT) began in 1978 with a street theatre performance at Britain Yearly Meeting. From these roots, they have grown into running week-long projects dedicated to producing a single piece of amateur theatre. Primarily based in Birmingham, they have put on plays in the Crescent Theatre, as well as in meeting houses across Britain.
Quaker Music Making
In addition to annual projects, The Leaveners also offer singing workshops to Quaker Meetings. Although some projects require musical proficiency, they also endeavour to make music accessible to everyone, and thus changed their name to Quaker Music Making, from Quaker Festival Orchestra and Chorus in 1997.
Words, Signs & Vibes
Words, Signs & Vibes (W,S&V) was a project for deaf, partially hearing and hearing young people, both Quaker and non-Quaker. They ran a weekly drama group for young people, and also held 1 or 2 week-long projects each year, usually during school holidays. Words, Signs & Vibes separated from the Leaveners in July 2008 and has since become an Independent Voluntary Organisation.
Patrons
As a charity, the Leaveners are supported by donations from its participants, families thereof, monthly meetings and its dedicated patrons:
- Judi Dench
- Sheila Hancock
- Ben Kingsley
- John Whitney