We are always looking for new ways to improve the quality of the experience of each participant of our workshops - we therefore take self-evaluation seriously and here are examples of feedback from previous participants:

Anon, Sheffield - June 2008

One of the young people who attended the Hip hop Shakespeare workshop came along from a project who work with young people who have been excluded from school called NOT School.

He was initially very shy and worried about coming to the workshop but we talked it through with him and he really enjoyed it at the end. He later told me about his plans to become an MC and go to performing arts college.

I think that his workshop will have improved his confidence.

Lorianne, London - September 2008

“I was really inspired by the Hip Hop Shakespeare workshop.  I’d come from doing a Blast Spoken Word workshop a few weeks before with Zena Edwards at the Serpentine Gallery.  At first I wasn’t’ sure what to expect from Hip Hop Shakespeare, but after doing the 3 days and performing in front of the crowd at the showcase, I felt like I’d really achieved something, and was inspired to do more and be more creative, to step outside of the mundane parts of life and try something new, to look into some of the stuff we explored.

The experience really changed the way I felt about Shakespeare and Hip Hop.  A lot of people have misconceptions about the two and think they’re two completely separate things, but through fusing the two, we found there were lots of similarities and not that many differences.  If someone asked me now if William Shakespeare would have been a rapper if he was around today, I think he would have.  His stuff is really similar to hip hop artists who are around at the moment in its languages and rhythms.

The workshop also pushed me to try hip hop for the first time, which I’d never done before, only spoken word, so I saw a new side of myself and I was able to showcase those new skills.

Blast is a fantastic thing, and more young people should know about it. If I’d have got these kind of opportunities even earlier in my life, who know’s what I’d be doing now!?

Since being involved in the Southbank Hip-Hop Shakespeare workshop, Lorianne says: ‘After doing this workshop I’ve been asked to write for Black History Week and the Young Vic - Before, I would never have had the confidence.’”