‘Without it, I don’t know what I’d be doing right now’: Inside the UK’s only arts centre dedicated to children
IIn a maze of giant playing cards and filled with giant chess pieces, half a dozen children laugh and try to find a way out.
They’ll pass through a secret door to find the Mad Hatter’s tea party, complete with brightly colored top hats.
In the tunnel beyond that there are croquet games, slides into ball pits, neon mushrooms and a white rabbit waiting to chat with them.
As these little ones go through this gripping process Alice in Wonderland As they go on an adventure, their surprise increases. When a new character appears, “Look” is shouted. “It’s the Cheshire Cat!”
Then welcome to theater by Z-arts, the UK’s only arts center for children.
Housed in a converted Edwardian church in Hulme, one of Manchester’s most historically deprived and diverse neighbourhoods, this unique facility has been making theatre, dance, literature, comedy and music accessible to young children from all walks of life for a quarter of a century.
The centre, which is run as an independent charity, celebrated its 25th anniversary this Christmas.
“What we do here – creating and delivering experiences designed to spark children’s love of the arts – is a wonderful privilege and we take it very seriously,” says Liz O’Neill, the centre’s executive director and artistic director.
“I think when you ignite that love in a child, it can lead to so many opportunities and open so many doors. It’s transformative. And that’s exactly what our mission is: using creativity to transform lives.”
There is little doubt that the place is remarkable. Inside the Tardis-like building are two theaters (a 230-seat auditorium and an 80-seat studio), a dance area, recording studios, a children’s library, immersive experience rooms (here). Adventures in Wonderland currently open) and a number of arts and crafts spots.
The café bar in the atrium makes homemade cakes and has a great dress-up box where toddlers can transform into literary characters. In fact, this may be the only place you can see the Tiger Who Came to Tea playing with Long John Silver.
Low-cost drama classes, dance sessions, creative writing classes and toddler art workshops are held every week. As part of the center’s mission to use the arts to empower, free workshops are held almost daily in a variety of settings.
A book club targets reading for ages 10 and up. Community outreach programs go to schools and local cultural centers. As a result, approximately 100,000 people interact with the center each year.
Celebrity guests include Tony Blair (as prime minister), Rio Ferdinand (as Man Utd player) and Damien Hirst (as a shark). But O’Neill says what’s more important than such big names are the thousands of kids who come through the doors every year.
“I think one of the things we do really well is that families can turn the visit into a full day,” he says.
“So, they might come to see a show, but then stay for free arts and crafts, pick up a book from the library, maybe attend a lecture. Every time you come back, there’s something new to try. So there’s a park across the road, and we often do DIY treasure hunts there.”
The venue’s origins date back to 1988, when Manchester City Council purchased the derelict church. In 1997 the newly formed charity Z-arts took over the lease and began to transform it into an arts centre.
It is not easy to measure the transformative impact it has had on young people over the years, but the success stories are coming thick and fast.
Singer Misha B, who was nominated for a Mobo award, said that Z-art had a significant impact on her decision to pursue music in her childhood, while some of the early works of theater producer Benji Reid, famous for revealing the black British experience from Manchester, were commissioned by the centre.
The venue’s current artist-in-residence, Beatriz Vilela, originally came from the annual Facilitate program. Another staff member, Mia McCann-Jones, says the place helped shape who she is today.
“As a kid coming here, all I really thought about was singing, dancing and what kind of mix’n’mix I would eat at the cafe later,” says the 18-year-old young man. “But looking back now, I realize I was constantly encouraged to express myself and meet new ideas and new people. I think I was always pretty confident as a kid, but this helped me navigate that.”
Today, Mia works front of house part-time at the venue during a gap year after taking her A-Levels in law, criminology and sociology. He was five years old when he first came here.
“My dad would bring me and my two sisters because he really cared about us doing extracurricular activities,” she recalls. “But it was so expensive everywhere. I think it was a blessing for him when he came across Z-arts.”
“If it wasn’t for Z-Arts, I don’t know what I would be doing right now,” says Sara Nadvi, a former participant. “But I know my life will be very different.”
The 21-year-old, who suffered serious mental health problems as a teenager and missed long periods of school as a result, has just graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in education and psychology and has now been working as a babysitter in Paris for a year. And he says both are a direct result of his time at the center.
“I would never have applied to Cambridge if it wasn’t for the confidence Z-Arts instilled in me,” he says. “I definitely wouldn’t move to a different country on my own.”
As a young child he was first taken to music lessons there. Later, after seeing a show there when he was 10 or 11, he asked his parents if he could enroll in drama and comedy improv classes.
“They have a fantastic subscription model where we pay around £10 a year and I can go to as many classes and workshops as I want,” he recalls. “For a lot of kids, it basically means that this new world is suddenly open to them.”
While struggling with these mental and physical health issues as a teenager, Z-Arts remained consistently positive. “It was a beautiful, magical place where you could be seen and listened to, where you could be silly and be part of a community without any judgment,” she says.
As he fell more in love with drama, he asked his old elementary school if he could teach Z-Art style classes there. They said yes. From this came the desire to become a primary school teacher. “You could probably draw a line between Z-Arts and my chosen career,” he says.
Adventures in Wonderland The experience is just coming to an end and O’Neill is enjoying the smiles on their young faces. “We’ve been seeing smiles like this for 25 years,” he says. “Here are 25 more.”
