Values and Working Principles

Values

 

The original impetus for the work began from lived experience at home with Disabled family members, and then through person centred music practice with children on the Autistic Spectrum & and their families; working to change the tough and cruel medicalised environment brought about by the Victorian poor law of 1834, attitudes continuing into the late 1980’s, and 90’s till 2001 Valuing People began to change the culture. Our work began in 1982, with detached youth work in the inner city of Nottingham. It soon became street dance, and from day 1, Isabel set out to address and create shared leadership in dance creation and performance, working on the top floor of Victoria centre with disenfranchised & criminalised teenagers and on the streets of Nottingham.

Our work has maintained it site specific origins, and in 2014, and during the Pandemic we returned to the street and to outdoor environments to perform our work: Ad Astra, White Cane, Quarry-o-sion, Soundwalk into Wellbeing.

‘Equity’ ‘equality’ and ‘creativity’, are embedded at the heart of what we do, while we investigate the process of how to shift the power, moving from passive recipient to active participant and creator. We don’t know anything till we listen, and the art of listening to people of difference is a process to be learnt. So we aim to enquire, activate, and challenge hierarchy’s, to create an environment of attunement, and friendliness where people can share and change  an inaccessible space into one that supports their wellbeing.

Principles

All Salamanda Tandem’s work is established within a framework of guiding principles, values and methods developed by Artistic Director Isabel Jones, coming out of her childhood, as a carer, and through her father Lewis Jones who was Blind from birth. The principles began to take root, through her early work 1982 – 1986 as musician and pioneer of a world renowned person centred practice called ‘Musical Interaction’ which she designed a creative approach to enable children, and young people on the autistic spectrum and their parents and friends to interact together. This work has been widely published by other academics, and by Isabel herself who through Salamanda Tandem, turned these tools into principles and a honed practice that has been taught extensively to artists, health care professionals, and teachers all over the world.

Salamanda Tandem has a reputation for quality, expertise and innovation in:

• Participatory art work with people
• Socially Engaged Contemporary Art and Sensory Performance
• Professional / Personal development
• Dissemination, publication and debate
• Evaluation and Consultancy

Embedded at the heart of what we do is the desire to develop and promote ‘wellbeing’ ‘equality’ and ‘creativity’; we aim to learn from our own lived experience and from others to ensure that all ST’s work is of high quality and consistently enables positive development for people.

We learn through creative engagement with others.

Salamanda Tandem Blog

Salamanda Tandem’s sensory art is always growing, as it involves communion with nature, environment, and people, the art made out of these ingredients is our daily bread and what  improve our quality of life, and that of people around us

Read our selection of detailed project blog posts on this site, for a flavour of our work in sound, words and photographs