Establishment of Sampad at mac Birmingham

Sampad was founded in 1990, under the directorship of Piali Ray OBE. The arts organisation was established to strengthen the infrastructure of South Asian arts in the West Midlands and Birmingham region. Due to Director Piali Ray's background as a dancer, this south Asian arts development agency has retained its strengths in dance, however its current remit is much wider, covering cross art forms of music, theatre, crafts and literature within education and community environments.

This flyer is for the kathak dance performance Once Upon A Time, which was choreographed by Nahid Siddiqui and performed by young dancers from the Nahid Siddiqui Company. Produced in association with Sampad, the performance drew on fables from India and Pakistan and the folk tales of Britain.

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Once Upon a Time – Flyer by Nahid Siddique & Company, 2000

Since its inception fourteen years ago, Sampad has grown into one of the UK's leading arts development agencies, instilling a deep and distinctive structure of South Asian arts in Birmingham and Britain through its productions, education and outreach activities, employing and advocating for South Asian Arts and artists. In establishing Sampad, Piali Ray wanted to ensure that South Asian arts in the Midlands, became an integral and distinctive strand of the social fabric of contemporary Britain. Its primary endeavour was to maintain the growth of south Asian arts, to stimulate and enable new ideas and ventures and to recognise opportunities for capacity building, whereby south Asian arts professionals, programmers and managers can effectively apply their talents. Presently, Sampad has core funding from Birmingham City Council and from the Arts Council, and while its founding purpose was to strengthen the infrastructure for South Asian arts in the West Midlands, its influence and remit are currently much wider.

The word Sampad , in Sanskrit means wealth, and the organisation translates this as cultural wealth to be shared as widely as possible. The Birmingham arts organisation has aimed to lead the way in promoting the appreciation and practice of arts originating from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Within these arts, Sampad engages in a multi-disciplinary approach. Its activities are a range of cross-art and cross-cultural initiatives and are rooted in the three main art forms: dance, music and theatre. However crafts, literature and storytelling have more recently played a strong role in the production of cross-art projects.

Performing arts and education

Since 1990, Sampad's programmes have fallen into three categories: performance arts programmes: which endeavour to develop, sustain and raise the profile of south Asian arts in the UK; education arts programmes: in which Sampad works with regional LEAs and artists in education agencies and develops programmes to reach young people outside formal education or those who have limited access to South Asian arts; and the capital development programme: involving efforts to raise financial resources for the organisations longevity. This has included an Arts Council grant of £0.5 million towards the development of Sampad and mac- Birmingham to improve the Midland's centre for arts.

This image shows cushion covers, caps and a bag using the traditional Asian embroidery technique of phulkari or "flower work". In 1996 - 1997, Sampad implemented Pipli, a Crafts project, which culminated in a three-year touring exhibition of thirty appliquéed and embroidered lanterns and hangings. Pipli was a collaborative project aimed to develop local craft skills among fifty South Asian women.

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Phulkari Photograph 1, 1996, unknown

Sampad is based in the Midlands Arts Centre ( mac ) in Birmingham's, Cannon Hill Park and its chairman is the academic, physicist and head of the English National Forum, Ranjit Sondhi. He sees Sampad's alliance with mac as a natural partnership since they both share the same philosophy of how a multicultural country should be and both acknowledge the importance of promoting diverse cultures and arts in the community.

Sampad also involves itself in groundwork with artists, teachers and community workers, arranging networking forums for the development of South Asian arts in the Midlands. It has implemented Summer schools for art form skills, master classes for professional dance development and teacher training placements and administration training opportunities. Education and community projects are integral to Sampad's vision of development and in order to gain profile and partners, events are promoted directly and in partnership with venues and organisations.

Examples of Sampad's key outreach and community projects are Pipli, Goddess of Mahi River and Heer Ranjha . Pipli, (1996/1997) was a crafts project delivered in conjunction with Craftspace Touring and local authorities in the West Midlands region. This involved women from various Asian communities who produced a touring exhibition of embroidery and appliqué patterns. The 1994 production Goddess of Mahi River , was a high profile production with eight Birmingham schools in partnership with English Sinfonia and Symphony Hall. Heer Ranja, the legendary Punjabi love story was a theatre musical with over eighty participants performing with dance professionals and was produced in 1997.

Sampad's education and outreach programmes are well bedded in and around Birmingham and currently operate in Leeds, Bradford and Newcastle as part of an audience development programme run by Sampad's bursar, Caroline Griffin.

Since 1990, Sampad's activities in music, dance, theatre, education and literature have expanded. We have featured below highlights of Sampad's community and high profile arts projects within these five categories of work

Music

Within the field of music, Sampad's initial work began by implementing master classes in I south Asian music composition and vocal training, tutor training in collaboration with Leeds College of Music and Birmingham Conservatoire, young musician national tours, annual showcases of talent, and ad hoc collaborative commissions such as the one with Ananda Shankar and Sam from the British Asian band, State of Bengal. However, after nine years, in 1999, Sampad was able to employ a dedicated Music Officer who piloted projects to determine the future Sampad's music work. Highlights of the project were: 1999's Outlawz Wit Attitudez - a youth project in Coventry which involved training twelve young men and women from Hillfields, one of the most deprived areas in the city, in DJ-ing and video making. The group then presented their efforts at a local club venue; a Sampad/Caliche collaboration where Sampad joined forces with South American Music group, Caliche to hold a cross cultural artists development week with south Asian musicians from Birmingham.

This landscape colour photograph features classical and fusion musician Ananda Shankar, who is seen holding a sitar, and Sam Zaman from the Asian underground band, State of Bengal. The two artists collaborated for a concert tour organised by Sampad.

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The Ananda Shankar Experience with State of Bengal – Photograph by Sampad, 1998

In 2000, Sampad produced Out of Babel which also featured five musicians from south Asia and South America to create a music ensemble in an educational collaboration and performance. Milan Geet, is an example of a Sampad community music project, which brought together wedding songs from diverse Asian languages - Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Bengali, Sylheti and Mirpuri. This event was performed in 2000, at mac by women's groups from Birmingham and Sandwell to a female audience.