- January 10, 2024
Mandala Theatre Company
What does your organisation do?
Mandala is a diversity-led professional theatre company, with a focus on social change and justice, working locally, nationally and internationally. We create new work for touring, co-create international theatre festivals and projects, run creative learning initiatives and develop high quality youth training programmes, providing pathways into the arts particularly for young people from the Global Majority and/or socially disadvantaged backgrounds. We develop work through Knowledge Exchange collaborations with academics, activists, education and community organisations.
What does having a social impact mean to you?
Our work with disadvantaged young people is intended to be transformational, providing inspiring experiences, excellent training and the opportunity to broaden horizons through making connections with people from all kinds of backgrounds, both in the UK and internationally. We work with Care Leavers to offer a creative outlet and the chance to feel supported at a time when they may feel extremely vulnerable. We create and tour productions that explore the most urgent issues of our time, working with experts and developing ideas through working closely with target groups and community organisations. Recent productions have explored mental health, notions of masculinity and the effects of exclusion in the education system. Our work throughout 2024 will focus on climate change and environmental sustainability, through a new touring play and a major international Youth Theatre Festival, hosted here in Oxford. These productions and projects reach audiences all over the country and abroad, to inspire debate and dialogue, supported by structured engagement programmes in schools, theatres and community spaces, intended to educate, inform and often act as a call to action. We believe the arts is extremely well-placed to effect real change by impacting hearts and minds and engaging people’s emotions.
