Imaginate believes that a high quality creative development programme is the key to unlocking creativity and supporting artistic excellence in the performing arts sector for children and young people. This programme creates regular opportunities for artists and practitioners, whether they are students, established artists or at the beginning of their career.
We have a series of projects that focus on the development of new performance ideas for young audiences including Launchpad (funding for early career artists to develop a new scratch idea), Accelerator (funding for artists to develop a new work in progress) and Imaginate At residencies (a series of partnership residencies offering funding and space to work on a idea).
We curate a year-round programme of events to share your performance ideas with your peers and industry colleagues including Scratch nights, work in progress performances and at the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival.
We run a Go & See Fund which is open all year round to support makers, designers and producers to see the most exciting and relevant theatre and dance for young audiences happening in Scotland - a chance to go and see the shows you think can help influence and inspire your next project.
We are delighted to be able to offer free desk space to work within the Imaginate office (30b Grindlay Street, Edinburgh). This space is free of charge to those who work in the young audiences sector – makers, performers, designers, technicians, producers, programmers – but must be booked in advance. As our office gets busier and fills up with freelance staff leading up to the Festival, we are unfortunately unable to offer this space from mid-February to mid-June.
Find out more on our opportunities section.
We offer a year-round programme of workshops and masterclasses open to those who are involved in making work for young audiences. This can include makers, performers, designers, producers, digital artists, musicians and others who are interested in cross artform collaboration.
We like to connect all those who work in the sector so offer a year-round programme of networking opportunities including social events and artist walks.
Find out more about some regular events.