Common Ground – Songbook and Network

Common Ground - Songbook and Network builds on our existing work providing music/dance/art workshops for York’s refugee/asylum seeker community (previously funded by City of York Council), and our in-press research output. As well as working with two alumni facilitators in three workshops for refugees, offering participants the opportunity to share music/dance from their cultures and to co-create music/dance/artwork, we will build a network of practitioners/researchers working in this area and prepare a large grant application and research output.

The workshops will connect to the University of York project ‘The book of refugees’ led by Dr Ahmed Khaleel, a collection of poetry/prose/art with resonance for our participants; some of the existing material may be used to initiate creative musical ideas, leading to output which will be showcased on ‘The book of refugees’ website.

Our project is in association with Refugee Action York, York City of Sanctuary and Refugee Council (all of whom supported our previous work). In this project, we invite staff/volunteers from these organisations to contribute their own texts/poetry/artwork, which may also become creative starting points. We will support an interdisciplinary study event involving organisations working with refugees, music facilitators and University of York staff/students in which we will showcase a workshop and explore the ways in which participants, organisation staff/volunteers navigate music, text and meaning in this context.