Last Thursday, we had a really exciting creatively-charged day! I went on a Creative Visit to the valleys with John and Renny O'Shea, a really exciting theatremaker who makes up one-third of theatre company Quarantine

A Creative Visit is the first stage in the Research and Development (R & D) of a new project, where we ask artists to explore their ideas for the long and short term. A Creative Visit involves artists spending time with the NTW team, researching places, people and subject matter. We end the Creative Visit by asking artists to tell us their ideas for the project's future development.

Our starting point for this Creative Visit was the Valleys. And male voice choirs. We left the Cardiff drizzle and drove north to Pontypridd to meet Geoff Cripps and Angela Gould from the Rhondda Cynon Taff Theatres at the Muni.

After an exciting conversation about how to engage RCT communities in the work of National Theatre Wales, we left to visit the town of Penrhys and Wayne Carter, who runs the Canolfan Rhys arts centre there. We heard about the development of Penrhys and the amazing arts projects and festivals produced and run there by the Penrhys Paertnership.

After Penrhys, we drove to visit the Parc and Dare - a theatre and workman's institute - in Treorchy. Here we met Rhondda Cynon Taff Community Arts and had a tour of the theatre's fantastic 600-seater space.

Afterwards we made a dash back down the valley to meet Valleys Kids in Penygraig where we saw their incredible converted chapel space and managed to be in there when some children broke into an impromptu dance routine! Valleys Kids is a really exciting organisation and one I really want to continue building a relationship with.

We then drove back to Treorchy to see Treorchy Male Choir's last rehearsal before their Australia/New Zealand tour. To sit at the side, listening to these amazing voices fill a small schoolroom was such a privilege and a wonderfully reflective and uplifting end to an inspiring journey.

Renny will now take these experiences and these conversations to begin to develop a piece of work. National Theatre Wales now also takes these same experiences and conversations to begin to develop relationships and projects with the communities, people and places we met - and are now inspired to meet in the future.

I came away exhilarated by the energy and enthusiasm of the individuals we met who are committed to building a vibrant creative community in the Valleys.

I am really excited by the different ways National Theatre Wales can engage with this community and hope this social network can get some ideas flowing on how we can do that!