Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s £10,000 funding boost empowers new arts graduates to bring innovative ideas to life
From new plays and musicals to sustainable set construction – an annual £10,000 funding award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland supports new graduates as they bring their innovative ideas to life.
For almost 40 years, the Bruce Millar Trust, and latterly the Bruce Millar Graduate Fellowship, has enabled emerging artists to take their first steps into the professional world with substantial financial support that gives them the space and time for creative experimentation.
At the time of his death, Bruce Millar was a Director for the BBC in London, where he worked in drama and light entertainment. In 1988, a memorial trust was established by his father, who was a long-standing Governor of RSAMD (now RCS).
The award, which draws to a close this year, is presented annually to new graduates of the School of Drama, Dance, Production and Film (DDPF) to fund a project, performance, phase of research and development or launch a creative company.
This year’s recipient of the final fellowship is Dr Aby Watson, a neuroqueer artist, choreographer, academic, performer and activist, who will use the funding for Disordering Dance: A (choreo)Graphic Memoir of Neuroqueering, where she will turn their doctoral thesis into a graphic memoir.
Aby will collaborate with comics artist Georgia Webber to explore how neuroqueer choreography and graphic medicine can be used to illustrate a personal journey of defying societal expectations through dance.
The development phase will result in the creation and print of a limited-edition graphic zine, to be launched and distributed in partnership with Glasgow Zine Library.
“The Bruce Millar Graduate Fellowship gives us the support to kickstart this journey through sustainable means, whilst also keeping a connection to the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, which has been a home base for my practice and self over the years, as well as a central setting for the story itself,” said Aby.
“With this project, the Fellowship supports my transition from self-funded research student to full-time freelance artist academic and I hold great excitement for all that is to come.”
The Bruce Millar Graduate Fellowship has been delivered directly by RCS for the last five years. Recent recipients include Max Gabbott and Fergus Massie, graduates of the BA Production Arts and Design degree, who used their funding to take a more sustainable approach to set construction.
Determined to tackle the entertainment industry’s throwaway culture, woodworkers Max and Fergus established Marmoset Construction, a set construction company that creates sets from recycled materials and modifies existing set elements for reuse.
A new musical that began its journey at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland premiered in Glasgow thanks to the fellowship funding, as part of the acclaimed lunchtime theatre experience A Play, A Pie and A Pint.
Musical theatre duo Jonathan O’Neill and Isaac Savage – who met while studying on the BA Musical Theatre programme – debuted Stay at Òran Mór, which explored ‘love, grief and peculiar park-life’. The play starred fellow RCS musical theatre alumni – Daisy Ann Fletcher, Craig Hunter, and was directed by Melanie Bell, with additional choreography from Hannah Docherty.
The play, A Cocktailer’s Guide to Surviving a Pandemic, was concocted by Meghan de Chastelain during the first few months of the Covid pandemic and was brought to life with Bruce Millar funding.
Meghan, a graduate of the MFA (Directing) Classical and Contemporary Text programme, was inspired to write a story using cocktails as the basis for storytelling, with characters representing different liquors and stories told through the cocktail’s ingredients.
Duo Sinéad Hargan and Anya Sirina, Contemporary Performance Practice graduates, received the Bruce Millar award for their project Seeking Spaces Eroded, which saw the creation of an archive of performance research made at, and in response to, tidal sites.
Deborah Keogh, Head of Engagement at RCS’s Knowledge Exchange, said: “Funding for artists at the early stages of their careers is crucial as it provides essential support to bring new ideas to life. In current circumstances it is more critical than ever.
“Awards like the Bruce Millar Graduate Fellowship not only empower artists to actualise their creative visions but also enable them to push boundaries, challenge conventions and contribute to the cultural tapestry in meaningful ways.
“We are honoured to have managed the final five years of this prestigious award for our graduates. Funding for graduates, at this kind of level, is rare for those taking their first steps into their profession. Our five fellowships demonstrated the impact that they can create and their entrepreneurial spirit when in receipt of much-needed, early-stage funding.”