Impact Arts

What happens when you take gifted young people from across Edinburgh and ask them to respond creatively to the fascinating contents of the cavernous National Museum of Scotland?

Cashback to the Future last week launched the project’s final showcase, and transformed the museum into an all-singing, all-dancing celebration of young people’s creativity and imagination!

This showcase – entitled Fusion – was an opportunity for them to show an audience all that they had learned, including energetic interpretative dance routines, collaborative live music performances, light-hearted short films and intricate visual art exhibitions.

The show began with attendees being taken on guided tours of the Museum interior, all delivered and designed by the young people themselves. These were both funny and enlightening, and showed the confidence and performance skills the team had developed during their time on the programme.

Giving the audience the opportunity to view the sculpture, prints and drawings produced by the Cashback visual arts team, the tour then moved down into the bowels of the Museum where watched some stop-motion animation, a film about what makes Edinburgh, and a music video to accompany original hip-hop compositions.

The audience was then treated to a spectacular showcase of interpretative chair dancing, which included some audacious and acrobatic moves, and then a series of musical performances incorporating original compositions as well as covers – maybe the first time Ariana Grande has featured inside the Museum walls…?

The show ended with some brilliant footwork by young participant Claudio, which brought the rest of the group onto dancefloor for a raucous send-off to an unforgettable project.

Much more about the Cashback to the Future programme can be seen on our Cashback team’s blog. For more about Impact Arts’ work with young people, visit this section of our website.