We are looking to commission a Leeds arts organisation (including secondary schools and colleges) to work with young people to produce a 15 minute performance in any art form for Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). The Leeds event will be held on Sunday 27th January 2019 at 2pm at Leeds Town Hall.

HMD offers an opportunity to reflect as we share the memory of the millions who have lost their lives in the Holocaust and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur in order to challenge hatred and persecution in the UK today. The theme for HMD 2019 released by The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is Torn from home. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust offers the theme Torn from home to encourage audiences to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call ‘home’ is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide. ‘Home’ usually means a place of safety, comfort and security. On HMD 2019 we will reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or the threat of genocide, alongside the continuing difficulties survivors face as they try to find and build new homes when the genocide is over.

The selected organisation will be given a 15 minute slot on stage with which to carry out their performance, based on their interpretation of the theme.

The scope of the theme could include:

• The meaning of home before genocide

  • What makes a home?

  • Fleeing from home before genocide

• Torn from home during genocide

  • Forced from home

  • Finding an alternative home

  • Making a home a refuge

• A home after genocide

  • Returning home

  • No home to  return to

  • An empty home

  • Making others feel at home

For further information and to download the full theme paper for 2019 please go to:

http://www.hmd.org.uk/resources/theme-papers/hmd-2019-torn-home

If you are selected we can arrange for a speaker to come and talk to you and your group about the Holocaust if you feel it would be useful or put you in touch with relevant organisations. The performance can be in any art form (theatre, music, dance, performance poetry etc) and should involve young people from Leeds. 

For more information about Holocaust Memorial Day visit www.hmd.org.uk .  We welcome applications from organisations who work with a diverse range of young people.  The theme is quite broad so it would be preferable if proposals could have some kind of a local connection. If you would like to discuss the theme further please contact us.

Deadline for applications: Monday 23rd July at midnight.

Total fee: Maximum £1,500 (to include materials, staff time and any stage requirements)

Payment Schedule:

£250 on receipt of an invoice and signed contract

£250 on receipt of an invoice and start of rehearsals

£1000 on receipt of an invoice on completion of project and evaluation

Successful organisations will have to provide marketing information about the performance by 12th October, and submit a brief evaluation of the project on completion.