As part of a project run by Imaginate, children involved in the new North Edinburgh Youth Arts Collective have been working with artist Bishop May Down on a new performance, Election which will premiere at the North Edinburgh Festival (Sat 17 May) ahead of its inclusion in the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival Family Day programme at the National Museum of Scotland (Sat 24 May).
Election is a short, humorous pop-up performance theatre piece about politics and power, seen from a young person’s point of view. The show imagines eleven-year-olds as political ‘bigwigs’ with the power to make real change, and offers audiences a child’s perspective on what is valuable in their world.
Election is part of Creative Encounters, a three-year project set up by Imaginate (who produce the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival), which explores what it means to put children’s rights at the heart of the creative process.
Bishop May Down, Artistic Director of Election said: “Initially, I was definitely surprised, in an amazing way, about how passionate, articulate and knowledgeable the young people involved are about political issues, and current world issues.
“I think they are at a really interesting age of being able to articulate their opinions and they are also just verging on being able to challenge other’s opinions.”
From autumn 2022 until summer 2025, young people from North Edinburgh have been working with artists and Imaginate staff to co-create new theatre and dance performances, giving a central role to children’s ideas, interests and voices.
Young people are involved as key decision makers from the beginning of the project and commission an artist to create a theatre or dance performance, and they are invited into the artists’ creative process to co-create performances.
Young people also take part in workshops on curation, content creation, photography journalism, speech writing, and decision making.
Here is a sneak preview of them in rehearsal on YouTube:
Election will be performed throughout the day at both North Edinburgh Community Festival (Sat 17 May @12-4pm) and the Children’s Festival Family Day (Sat 24 May @10am-5pm).