This one-day workshop, organised in collaboration with 1 Shanthiroad, was conducted by Nelson Fernandez, on the following aspects of an arts festival – developing a strategy in alignment with the vision and mission; strategy for engagement with stakeholders, artistic and corporate partners; and engaging and working with a variety of audiences.
Workshop Facilitator: Nelson Fernandez
Nelson Fernandez is an arts producer and cultural facilitator with experience of working throughout the world. During a career as an artist, producer, and facilitator, he has worked with organisations of every conceivable size and profile in the fields of dance, drama, opera, and visual arts. In 1997, after working as a dance artist with companies in the UK, Europe, and North America and later as an independent arts producer, he joined the British Council and was seconded to Visiting Arts, a UK government agency which supports artistic exchange and intercultural dialogue between the UK and the rest of the world. As one of Visiting Arts’ three directors, with responsibility for Cultural Operations, Nelson supervised the development of a broad spectrum of arts management and cultural leadership programmes dealing with the visual and performing arts.
He left Visiting Arts in 2008 to set up NFA International Arts and Culture. NFA is an arts production company providing specialist services to artists and arts organisations, as well as to foundations, government agencies, and academic institutions involved in international arts and cultural operations. The company undertakes project and event management, arts management training and development, and brokering of international relationships, bringing together the international expertise and contacts of its two principal directors, Nelson Fernandez and Roger McCann and a number of associates in the UK and around the world.
Since its inception, NFA has worked with a variety of organisations across the world, including British Council offices in the UK and around the world; the UK’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport; the Emirates Foundation Abu Dhabi; the Southbank Centre London; the Virasat Foundation in Rajasthan India; the Cultural Olympiad of the London Olympic Games 2012; the Victoria & Albert Museum London; the Edinburgh International Festival; Arts Council England’s Sustained Theatre initiative; the UK’s National Youth Theatre; Akademi South Asian Dance Agency, London; the Fadjr Festival, Tehran; and Relais Culture Europe, Paris. Nelson has been Scottish Dance Theatre’s International Producer since 2009 and is currently working as the International Producer for the Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company in New Delhi. He is also International Producer for Naciketa, a new opera with music by Nigel Osborne, based on a book by Ariel Dorfman, and libretto by David Pountney. The work, a collaboration between British and Indian artists, premiered in India in December 2013 and then toured in Australia, Asia, Europe, the UK, and North America. The UK premiere happened in August 2014 at the Edinburgh International Festival.
Nelson is a regular speaker at seminars, conferences, and symposia on issues relating to the arts, arts management, cultural policy and diplomacy, and intercultural dialogue. He is a Trustee of Brighton Festival & Dome Ltd., ATC Theatre Company, and Theatre O, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Chevalier of France’s Ordre des Arts et Letters. He was awarded an OBE by HM The Queen for services to the arts in the June 2009 Birthday Honours List. Nelson is an avid traveller, and divides his time between France and the UK, in addition to travelling around the world as part of his work and for pleasure. He enjoys cooking as a form of relaxation and because he loves to eat!
Participants: Anupama Prakash, Archana Prasad, Bharavi, Bhimappa Pattar, Biju Cherayath, Deepthi Sasidharan, K P Hari, K Radhakrishnan, Lina Vincent Sunish, Madhu Rani, Neha M, Parul Sharma, Priya Rao, Satishachar, Shashank Purushottham, Shiva Phatak, Surekha, Suresh Kumar, Tejasvi Jain.
