The National Theatre of Scotland’s (£54,862)
The National Theatre of Scotland will relay captions and audio descriptions live to smart phones during performances to allow those with hearing or sight impairments to fully enjoy their programme, thanks to an award of nearly £55,000 from the UK’s Innovation Foundation, Nesta.
Jackie McKenzie, Head of Innovation Programmes Scotland for Nesta said “Projects such as that proposed by the National Theatre of Scotland will bring their fantastic programme to a whole new audience. By using captioning and audio description directly to smart phones, every theatre performance will be made truly accessible for those with hearing or sight impairments”.
Founded in 2006, the National Theatre of Scotland exists to create theatre experiences that are contemporary, confident and forward looking. Since their launch, the National Theatre for Scotland has been involved in creating 190 productions in 168 different locations and have performed to over 860,000 people across four continents. The Company has a permanent core staff of 41, but also employs over 600 theatre practitioners each year to help create our productions.
The National Theatre of Scotland will work with We Are Everyone (technology partner) and FLIP – Disability Equality in the Arts – to create a web-based platform to relay captions and audio description directly to smart phones or tablets in real time during live theatre performance.
The National Piping Centre, in partnership with Glasgow-based digital media consortium Yellow Brick House, is now embarking on an ambitious e-learning project which will deliver high quality bagpipe tuition digitally using webinar technology and live streaming services. This will allow NPC tutors to deliver interactive virtual piping tuition to individuals anywhere in the world. As part of an integrated e-learning package, the NPC seeks to make available digitally its library of archive print and audio resources and utilise its social media channels to encourage dialogue which will increase engagement in piping and the NPC. The NPC launched its live event streaming at Piping Live! Festival 2012 in the NPC Auditorium.