LAUREN ELLIOTT
Drama | BA Contemporary Performance Practice
How did you find out about Transitions?
Focus West held a workshop in my high school for pupils who were interested in careers within the creative industries. Through this I heard about the Transitions programme and decided to try applying.
When did you get involved with Transitions?
I got involved with Transitions just after leaving high school in 2014. At the time I was just about to start an HND in television at college.
What was the most useful thing you learned about your artform and yourself?
When I started on Transitions my chosen art form was film, but after finishing my HND I began to realise that I was also interested in performance. I was anxious about expressing interest in a different art form, but my mentors were encouraging and helped me find ways of exploring performance. One of the most important experiences that I had on Transitions was a project called The Experimentation Playground. Throughout the project we took part in workshops with other students where we devised new performance pieces. This was my first time experiencing the devising process and I discovered that I found it exciting to create performance with other people. We would walk into a room not knowing each other, and after three hours we had created a piece of performance together. This process of devising, especially with the inclusion of people from different art forms inspired me to want to explore performance that was more experimental. A few months later I joined a young company for contemporary performance, directed by graduates of the BA Contemporary Performance Practice degree course. My experience with them ignited a spark in me and led me to apply for CPP.
Why should someone think about joining Transitions?
Transitions gave me opportunities to meet people, to learn, and to try things that I don’t think I would have had the chance to if I hadn’t been on the programme. These opportunities can help you gain more experience that will hopefully give you more confidence if you are applying to higher education courses within the RCS or other colleges and universities. Having the chance to speak with mentors on the programme can also be really helpful. When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, being able to speak with my mentors about how I was feeling and the experiences that I was having helped me to keep moving forward, and eventually come to the realisation that I really wanted to study performance. If you’re interested in going into the performing arts or production but you’re not sure how to find your place, it might be worth having a look into Transitions.
What is one piece of advice would you give to any current student on Transitions?
The Transitions programme was almost like an anchor for me. After leaving college there were times where I felt quite lost, and knowing that I would have the chance to meet with my mentors a few times each year helped me feel that I was still working towards something, even when I felt worried that I wasn’t. It was a base that I always came back to that helped me see that I was still heading in the direction that I wanted to go, even if I was taking a slower route. I needed time to explore and figure things out, and that’s okay. It’s okay to feel a bit lost at times. It’s okay to change direction. Everyone’s path is different, and you will find your way.
If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently within your time with Transitions?
My experience on the Transitions programme played a big part in helping me get to where I am now. I think if I had the chance to do it all over again I would mainly just want to have more faith in myself. I hope that I wouldn’t doubt myself so much, and that I’d be less afraid of going for opportunities when they came up. Maybe I would be a little braver about expressing that I wanted to do performance. It can be a scary thing to realise that you want to try something different, but it’s worth pushing through the fear to find what it is that you really want to do.
If you’d like to find out more about how to apply for Transitions, visit our pages on ‘How to Apply’ here.
