Vision and Principles

Vision

Salamanda Tandem exist to develop cutting edge participation, contemporary art and sensory performance;  to inspire and enable people from all areas of society, harness their creativity to improve their quality of life, and that of people around them.

Salamanda Tandem: Helena and Isabel Switzerland. Photo: Geoffrey Fielding

• Thought leaders in creativity, and the engineers of participation.

• Developers of socially engaged performance art at the cutting edge

• An ethical organisation, committed to the realisation of wellbeing in self and others

Salamanda Tandem: Fragile? Team of Dancers, Estonia

salamanda tandem: Dancers: Mickel, Isabel, and Victoria. Image: Richard Hughes and Geoffrey Fielding

Context

Salamanda Tandem est. 1989, is the means by which trans-discaplinary working, free range collaboration and shared invention between people is realized. Whether inventing new artistry; changing the attitudes that disable people; or investigating how our own creativity works; salamanda tandem has earned a reputation for being ahead of the game, we aim to be folks you can rely on to innovate each and every time. But you’d be mistaken if you thought this was happening in a vacuum; its been built upon values and principles and we always need you in the frame! Making new connections between people, arts forms and across the fields of alternative health, education, philosophy, psychology, social care, yoga and the arts is our daily bread and what keeps us alive.

salamanda tandem: Dancers: Madeline, Isabel and Mickel. Image: Richard Hughes and Geoffrey Fielding

Who we are

ST is a company of international collaborating artists based in Nottinghamshire, England. The company is directed and was co-founded in 1989 by dancer / choreographer singer composer Isabel Jones. In 1992 Isabel became sole artistic director of the company, and over a 27 year period brought together many talented and committed artists, friends, family and colleagues who have collaborated with Isabel to produce an amazing body of work.

Dedicated to an inclusive and various art, we devise work in homes, theaters, institutions and public buildings of all kinds – in which people can find a place on their own terms. We seek in particular to develop and understand wellbeing, to integrate disadvantaged or disabled people into a vision of a world where expressive potential is not constrained by social preconceptions. Equally committed to the provision of professional / personal development, and the documentation of our work, Salamanda Tandem aims to nurture and celebrate the deepest resources of human creativity.

Principles

All Salamanda Tandem’s work is established within a framework of guiding principles, values and methods developed by Artistic Director Isabel Jones, through her early work 1982 – 1986 as musician and pioneer of a world renowned person centered 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 experience and from others in order to ensure that all ST’s work is of high quality and consistently enables positive development for people.

We all learn through creative engagement with others.

What We Do

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