Accelerate 2024 is a programme of work aimed at inspiring energy conscious young people to invest their skills and experience in a better future. 

As part of the programme, Highly Sprung’s Young Producers Collective are inviting young people to a Youth Energy Summit on Monday 18 and Tuesday 19 November at CBS Arena Coventry. The summit seeks to re-imagine a more equitable and sustainable future for the region, through keynote speakers and workshops, and features the premiere of Highly Sprung’s new spectacle performance: Accelerate.

Exposing the flaws of humanity’s relationship with energy, Accelerate is a new, daring, physical spectacle, combining dark humour, bold movement, aerial performance and conveyor belt dance. Performers battle through daily life, juggling with the exhausting demands of the day to day, struggling to find the energy. With only so much fuel to get them through, reserves begin to run low. There’s no choice - they must look for alternatives.

Accelerate is delivered through a powerful partnership between the leading arts organisation and young people’s charity Highly Sprung, alongside Warwick Institute of Engagement, Sustainability West Midlands, EON and Coventry City Council’s Strategic Energy Partnership and WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group). 

Jude from the Young Producers Collective said: “We have designed the Youth Energy Summit to inspire young people to bring their power and have their say, making a call for change. The problem with energy is the way that it is made. The most popular way to make energy is unsustainable and bad for the environment. We need to prioritise making energy sustainable to improving people’s lives now and in the future.”

Drawing on years of experience creating environmentally charged spectacle work, Highly Sprung continue to develop new ways to tell compelling stories and inspire action around climate change.

Sarah Worth, Executive Director at Highly Sprung said: “Our Accelerate performance is the third in our trilogy of environmental performance pieces, it is fitting that we are premiering this show at the Youth Energy Summit. In the performance we show how the planet is fighting back, and its getting messy, with the ‘dirty’ energy that fuels us running out of steam. 

“The performance looks at the world’s fuel supply and energy production and its relation to climate change, and how this impacts the physical resilience of energy infrastructures and ultimately our mental health, as a result of fuel poverty.

“More than 1 in 5 children in Rugby and 2 out of every 5 in Coventry are living in poverty with rising fuel costs blamed. We wanted our Young Producers, recruited from across these areas, to feel empowered and equipped with the skills to harness the power of arts and culture to make real change.” 

Through the Accelerate programme, Highly Sprung and the project partners have provided upskilling and training for the 12 members of the Young Producers Collective in order to develop their understanding of the role arts and culture plays as part of environmental solution thinking and innovation, and to give them the skills to produce the Youth Energy Summit.

In Autumn 2024 Highly Sprung additionally toured the Accelerate performance to 6 secondary schools, free of charge, with a total of 2000 young people experiencing the performance. 

The Youth Energy Summit has been funded by the Inclusive Communities Fund. Highly Sprung would like to thank the Heart of England Community Foundation, West Midlands Combined Authority, United by 2022, and the Commonwealth Games organisers for their support. The event is additionally sponsored by EON, and is delivered in partnership with Warwick Institute of Engagement, Sustainability West Midlands, EON and Coventry City Council’s Strategic Energy Partnership and WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group).