Wednesday 26 November 2014

Impact- in an hour.

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Being an artist or teacher that drops in with a group for a short session, an hour or two infrequently or as a one-off, comes with some great privileges.

Last week I had the pleasure of working with The International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA), as an artist ensemble leader as part of an in-house theatre festival for 6th grade students at The Canadian International School of Hong Kong (CDNIS). In terms of my role here at ISB, this was a fantastic opportunity for me to develop my practice as both a teacher and an artist, alongside a team of innovative artists and educators. It was especially useful for helping me to develop the Expressive Arts Program which I began last year in the ECC and ES.

The festival was designed around the theme of 'Superheroes' with students being mixed up into groups and spend the three days working with an ensemble leader. The time spent working with a group of students in this way, is incredible and amazing in it's own right. The students were completely engaged and gave huge amounts of energy and enthusiasm to the process. Even students who were resistant to the idea on the first day, eventually came around and were loving it by the end.

As the leader of an ensemble I felt the power I had as a new face for these kids. I knew that my strategies and approaches were different to their every day activities and that over the course of the festival I could capture their interest and imagination, and that together we could get some really good learning achieved.

But it is actually with a student who was not in my ensemble and with whom I only actually worked with for one hour, that I feel I had the most impact on. During one afternoon of the festival, the students were able to elect to take part in a skills workshop, based on a specific style or aspect of performance. I ran a session on autobiographical storytelling, through voice and body, and it was during this session that I had a student who had a particularly important experience.

My workshop was quite simple. In a nutshell-
Imagine a time in your life when you felt a strong emotion. This could be happy, sad, scared, angry, excited, proud, love, jealousy....
Go back to that memory in your imagination, then slowly we will build up a picture of it.
When did this memory take place. Let's start big and work down through the details. If you're not sure then give us your best guess, or a rough idea. 

Time:
What year was it?
What time of year/month?
What time of week?
What time of day?
Write as much information down about time as you can.

Place:
Which part of the world did it take place in?
Which country?
Which city or part of the country?
Which part of that place?
What do you remember about your surroundings?
Write as much information down about place as you can.

Event:
Who was with you?
What happened to make you feel that way?
Can you describe that feeling in an interesting way?
Write it down.

Then-
-Choose your most important sentence. Underline it.
-In partners, share your important sentence and create a movement for both of the sentences.
-next, underline your most important 'Time' sentence. and underline your most important 'Place' sentence.

Finally-
-In groups of four, share your 3 underlined sentences and your movement with each other.
-work together to organise the 16 ingredients into an order for a presentation of them.  

As was to be expected, students used this opportunity to share a variety of things. Some shared memories of being angry with another student at school, or being excited at Christmas, or being proud of winning a race, etc, etc. But the student who I feel was particularly impacted by the workshop, shared something very personal and difficult for him.

This student, let's call him 'Joe', did not particularly stand out during the first part of the workshop. As I talked the students through remembering, he worked quietly on his own just like everyone else. It was when I asked the students to work together in fours to combine their sentences and movements, that Joe came over to ask me a question. "Can somebody else read my sentences for me? Because my story is quite personal, see?!" he said, handing his piece of paper to me nervously.
I scanned down through the time and place phrases, then saw his underlined sentence. It read something like: I felt so sad and heavy like a big stone was inside me, because my mother had just died. I looked back at the time sentences. It read: It was last year.
"Sure," I answered gently "someone can read it for you, or if you prefer to say how you were feeling but not why, then you can just stop after the words inside me.
"Yeah, I'll do that," he decided.

When it came to his group's sharing, I watched him very shakily head up on to the stage. He was the last person to speak in his group and I watched him taking deep breaths to try to steady himself. Knowing the content of his story I could tell that he was clearly struggling with his emotions, but there was a sense of determination in his face when he read the Time phrase, then the Place, then after a big pause and a look across to me for reassurance, his important sentence. Presenting the movement may have been too much for him to handle though as his final thing to do was to collapse on the shoulder of the boy next to him, in an exaggerated way, perhaps to disarm the tension he expected to be there. But of course, the other students didn't know what his story was about, he had only described how he had been feeling, so there wasn't any unusual reaction from the audience for his group. They applauded with warmth and support, the kind they had been building throughout the festival, and I watched Joe realise he had done it. He had shared how he was feeling and he had not been laughed of the stage, or made to feel bad for it. The other children were applauding him and his group for doing well in their presentation and for sharing. He nodded his head to me when I said 'well done' as he was leaving. He still had that look of determination on his face.

I later found out that he had been talking about the death of his mother to his teacher every day since it happened. It was at the fore-front of his mind at all times, but it was not something he had shared with others yet. So this for him was an important step, being able to address his feelings in front of others, but also to feel safe and supported in doing so. It was therefore of course much more than just a presentation of a memory yet, because it was a presentation, it showed Joe that he could also use theatre or art to start exploring and understanding how he had been feeling.

It is through moments like this that I love the role I have as a teacher. Being given the opportunities, support and time to work with students in this way allows me to have a part, even if a small one, in their development. Of course, I can have impact in my normal classes, but it's in a different way, more subtle and on-going, but when it's an hour here or there, it can be so visible.

I must give thanks to ISTA though, to CDNIS and to the event itself. It was because of this that the student felt safe among his peers and was in the right mind-set for reflection and sharing. Although I was able to facilitate this experience, it was due to all of the support from them which enabled the him to experience it.


Monday 20 October 2014

A student's passion for Performance...

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Special words written by one of my fourteen year old students about why they are passionate about performance:

"For me, nothing is stronger than a bond created from theatre making. People who would have been strangers now friends, fellow innovators and dreamers, just like yourself. They too share the same hopes and ambitions. All with their own ideas, their own grand vision. Coming together to create something, something unique, something never before seen, something along the lines of a dream. 

When the people come together to create and devise, something extremely special happens. A spark is ignited within us. That moment where you can finally see the path that these ideas, from all around the world, have paved for you.

I want to be able to share this spark, this dream, with others who have traveled here to this hub of creativity for the same  reason as you: to experience this dream, this spark with others who know the power it can possess. 

I want to be there for when reality stops and the dream begins."



The student wrote this as his application to join our trip to The International Schools Theatre Association Festival in Shanghai early next year.

His passion is inspiring and invigorating. I know our students are very lucky to be at this school. I know the opportunities they are presented with are exceptionally wonderful and they are so very privileged for that. But when a student wants to share those fantastic experiences with others and to work together to build something special, with students across borders of many types, it makes it really worthwhile. It shows that these students are not necessarily spoiled, but that they are making the most of the opportunities they are offered, and they are actively looking to make connections and build bridges.

Many of these students will go on to high-ranking jobs all over the world, they will encounter many, many people in their lives and they have the potential to make changes to this world that really count. So let's hope when they do leave here that they all carry with them the same ideals and ambitions as this student clearly does.




Wednesday 1 October 2014

An AudioVisual Banquet. Part 2- This time with lasers!

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The second set of groups working to integrate multimedia live-performance software (Isadora) with experimental spoken word performance at ISB. This time with lasers, smoke and more varied video effects!











Thanks again to Ed Grody, Lisa O'Leary and Francesco Di Paolo (the Theatre Lighting, Sound and Video teachers) for their support, ideas and time!


Wednesday 24 September 2014

An AudioVisual Banquet. Intermediality- a collaboration,

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This morning at ISB, Ed Grody, Lisa O'Leary and Francesco Di Paolo (the Theatre Lighting, Sound and Video teachers) and I collaborated for a one-off class, in which we wanted to bring our two groups of students together for a mini-project. The aim was to integrate multimedia live performance software (Isadora) with experimental spoken word performance and to play around with this as a sandbox.



Prior to this class, The Advanced Performance Works students worked collaboratively to create original texts, but without knowing what the end result would be used for. Below is the writing exercise which is good for collaboratively generating texts.

Meanwhile the Theatre Lighting, Sound and Video class were getting to grips with the Isadora software and with the live camera work. Then this morning we all got together and in just 40 minutes this happened...
Group 1

Group 2

Group 3





Collaboratively Generating Text Exercise

First I asked them to fold a piece of paper into 8 squares and to write a word in each square- the first words that came into their heads. Any nouns, verbs or adjectives. Then students ripped the squares apart so they had 8 separate pieces of paper. Then they paired up and shared the words they had written. Next it was the object of the pair to arrange the 16 words into a list that had some structure or meaning from them, could be into some kind of loose narrative, could be arranged by similar words, whatever. They were allowed to edit out up to 3 words that weren't fitting in at this stage. Then it was about writing a text together to include these key words into a larger piece of writing.






Friday 19 September 2014

Performing with Voice- a collaboration.

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Last year, me and a colleague of mine, Cat Leclerc, who teaches The Voice Works class here (https://twitter.com/MS_VoiceWorks), had one of our exciting discussions, which always tend to lead to us working on some new idea together. This particular conversation was about trying to find a way for our classes to collaborate. In the end we agreed to work independently for a couple of weeks, with our own students then to bring that stuff together for a final presentation, exploring the themes of dream, war, a race and crowds. With my Performance students, we explored the themes through silent movement pieces, students devising each part in small groups. With the Voice students, Cat looked at creating vocal soundscapes, with song, sounds and words.

After two weeks of workshops and creating some material, we brought the classes together to watch what each had made and then we mixed up the students into groups to work together on combining it into one piece.

This video is the result of two of the themes: war and crowds (which became protest). 


Thanks to Lisa O'Leary for the filming and editing.


The exciting part of this project was that students had to leave their comfort zones in order to bring the whole project together. Performance students at this age are much more comfortable with words, speaking tends to be easier than moving or expressing yourself through the body, and Voice students who are more confident with singing, need an opportunity to explore a much wider range of vocal sounds.
Bringing the students together in this way also helped elevate the performances from the regularity and safety of our individual classrooms. Adding some ceremony to the event lifted it to a new level and brought something special out of the students. And as a result, a rich and quite different final presentation was delivered.

Collaboration. It's great.


Thursday 18 September 2014

Monday 15 September 2014

Moments of Magic

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I have just finished teaching one of my favourite classes of the year.

As part of the Expressive Arts Program here at ISB, I teach Grade 1 and right now we are just starting of the program for this year. It's week two and last week I introduced students to the class and to their first foray into Expressive arts, by giving out objects and asking them to describe how they feel. I use a pillow, a large tin pot, a rope, a big pipe-cleaner and a silver Christmas tree bauble. It's a key part for me in building their understanding of performing arts, and allows us to start thinking about the world around us and how to present that on stage.

In this week's session, I start by asking students to pass around the objects again, but this time with a catch- I didn't bring the objects. Well, more accurately I did bring objects, (and I really ham up the roleplaying of this) I just brought along imaginary objects. I show them where they are in the room and one by one I bring them over to the group. We then pass them around just as before but this time using our bodies/hands/eyes/voices and most importantly our imaginations to bring them to life. Instantly kids get it and with out much encouragement they already start acting- struggling when the tin pot is heavy and laughing when the pipe-cleaner tickles.

But all this is just building to the next part, which I love, when I tell them I brought them all a gift. I make a big show out of picking up the pile of imaginary silver balls I brought (each one the size of a ping pong ball), ask them to hold their hands out and then one-by-one I hand them out. I then explain why I have given them this special gift and how it can be used. 'This ball is not just any ball,' I say. 'It's a magic, imagination ball! Because you can do this with it-'  Then I pantomime molding and expanding the ball into the shape of a bird, I add the details of the beak and wings with my finger tips, then I stroke its head to show the shape and then while the kids are still working out what I'm making I say " Watch! and you'll see what it is!' and I give a little push and let the bird 'fly' around the room, dipping over their heads until it finally lands back in my hand. Instantly the kids understand what I just did and what they are also capable of, so I almost struggle to calm them down enough to give them a chance to do it themselves. They start inventing and creating straight away with their own magic ball.

The class then organically turns into an opportunity to explore the (lack of ) limits of imagination. So after a couple of minutes of students experimenting in their own space, I bring students together for their first presentation in front of the rest of the class (an audience) and each student shows what they can turn their ball into. As an audience we try and guess what it is.


But even with all these learning encounters, and the explosion of creativity that ensues (today I saw a dog in a doghouse being given a bone, a boy smashing a ball with a tennis racket, a girl with her own personal rainbow, and a whole load of other things too), the best part of this class is the end. When I tell students that they can keep the ball, on the condition they remember to bring it with them next week. They are almost surprised that I say they can have it and as they leave the room every student is bursting with ideas, desperate to share it with their friend and to make something with their imagination!

"Look I made a bike!!"
"I've got a lollipop!"
"Mine's a pair of earrings!'


- magic!

Friday 12 September 2014

The Power Of One Word (Part 2)

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The other half of my Advanced Performance Works class are also going through 'The Power of' process at the moment and creating some equally interesting performances, in very short amounts of time.

Here's one in response to this photo:

 The word this group chose to use was "Goodbye":







The next group took this photo of some ants, rotated it 180 degrees and interpreted it as their chosen word "Attention".





Finally, the last group chose this photo:
 And bent the rules (you can always bend the rules for a good idea in my classes) to include the words "I'm sorry."





Thursday 11 September 2014

Artist Toolbox: To Roll, To Crease, To Fold, To Store...

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In 1972, Richard Serra presented his (apparently famous) Verb List, after using it to great success in his sculpture work.

In 2006, I was presented with what I think must be a version of this from one of my lecturers at University. Now looking back, being presented with that document was one of the turning points of me as a student and as an artist. It helped me to not only look at my work differently but also to view the world through a different lens. It helped me to see that any material, be it text, image, movement, sound or idea, could be manipulated in such ways as to make it new, and not only that, by doing the same or different actions with multiple materials I discovered new and interesting connections between those things.

Now in 2014, I was listening to another TED talk, this time from Julie Burstein about creativity. And she talked about Serra's Verb List and it reminded me of that similar list that I received. These words are a fantastic resource for anyone who is working creatively. With the right outlook it's possible to apply the verbs to so many things, including ideas, for new and interesting possibilities and it's especially useful when devising theatre.


I'll be using them in some of my workshops coming up and will post explanations and results, but in the mean time here is the list digitally in case you are interested:

TO ROLL
TO CREASE
TO FOLD
TO STORE
TO BEND
TO SHORTEN
TO TWIST
TO DAPPLE
TO CRUMPLE
TO SHAVE
TO TEAR
TO CHIP
TO SPLIT
TO CUT
TO SEVER
TO DROP
TO REMOVE
TO SIMPLIFY
TO DIFFER
TO DISARRANGE
TO OPEN
TO MIX
TO SPLASH
TO KNOT
TO SPILL
TO DROOP
TO FLOW

TO CURVE
TO LIFT
TO INLAY
TO IMPRESS
TO FIRE
TO FLOOD
TO SMEAR
TO ROTATE
TO SWIRL
TO SUPPORT
TO HOOK
TO SUSPEND
TO SPREAD
TO HANG
TO COLLECT
OF TENSION
OF GRAVITY
OF ENTROPY
OF NATURE
OF GROUPING
OF LAYERING
OF FELTING
TO GRASP
TO TIGHTEN
TO BUNDLE
TO HEAP
TO GATHER

TO SCATTER
TO ARRANGE
TO REPAIR
TO DISCARD
TO PAIR
TO DISTRIBUTE
TO SURFEIT
TO COMPLIMENT
TO ENCLOSE
TO SURROUND
TO ENCIRCLE
TO HOLE
TO COVER
TO WRAP
TO DIG
TO TIE
TO BIND
TO WEAVE
TO JOIN
TO MATCH
TO LAMINATE
TO BOND
TO HINGE
TO MARK
TO EXPAND
TO DILUTE
TO LIGHT

TO MODULATE
TO DISTILL
OF WAVES
OF ELECTROMAGNETIC
OF INERTIA
OF IONIZATION
OF POLARIZATION
OF REFRACTION
OF TIDES
OF REFLECTION
OF EQUILIBRIUM
OF SYMMETRY
OF FRICTION
TO STRETCH
TO BOUNCE
TO ERASE
TO SPRAY
TO SYSTEMATIZE
TO REFER
TO FORCE
OF MAPPING
OF LOCATION
OF CONTEXT
OF TIME
OF CARBONIZATION
TO CONTINUE


Monday 8 September 2014

The Power Of One Word

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First thing Monday morning. Kids drag their feet into class. The lesson drags by as kids half sleep, half interact. By the time they've left they're just waking up, but too little too late. Right?

Wrong.

This morning The Advanced Performance Works class arrived ready to work, full of enthusiasm and energy and the lesson exploded into the week.

In our last session together we had been working on performance without words, in a session titled The Power Of Nothing. At the end of the session I launched our next task, The Power Of One Word, with an interesting social experiment. It went something like this:

Students were asked to each select a picture from a set of stimulus photos and attach one word to said picture. These pictures I get from a fantastic resource which is The Big Picture. They then present this picture and the spoken word to the group then lay it down in front of them. Then the experiment bit, (something I had never tried before but worked pretty well) was that I asked students to stand next to the photo they though the group should take forwards into the next part of the exercise, which would be to devise a scene based upon the image. Students could stand next to their own if they wanted, or move to another that inspired them more. 

Once students had selected for the first time, (a spread of a group next to one image and then a couple of individuals who had stayed with their own) I then asked the students to re-evaluate their choice to try to come to a group agreement. After a few re-evaluations students started to gather into two groups and from that point on didn't look like agreeing further. My original plan had been that the students would work in one large group, but as they had divided equally and organically into two groups, I changed my plan and let them continue like this.

- 'Brainwash'

- 'Abandoned'


Now in this morning's class and with the chosen stimuli in hands, I set the students to task- to create a short performance inspired by their image, in which they were allowed to speak only one word. They therefore had to choose carefully a new word which would have the maximum impact. It also encouraged them to think about the other elements of performance, in the absence of text, such as eye contact, movement, silence, lighting, music,  and to think carefully about the timing of the speaking of the word, given that it could only be said once.

In just 20 minutes, students were able to create absolutely gripping performances inspired by their chosen image. The words absolutely were powerful especially in the context of otherwise wordless performances, and the rest of the material was rich and delivered with commitment and focus.
In response to the 'Brainwash' photo, students spoke the word "Why?"

In response to the 'Abandoned' photo, students spoke the word "Next."



Not bad for a Monday morning...

Monday 1 September 2014

Artist Toolbox: Building trust. Building a team.

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As it's that time of the year when our groups of students are new, where students actually coming into physical contact with each other is only through awkward hugs or unfriendly 'roughhousing', and when there is more ice in the classroom than at the antarctic, many of us have team-building and ice-breakers on our planning.

I've had some really successful outcomes from some of my recent team building, so I wanted to share some of my favourite team/trust building exercises with you.

Here's one of them...

1. The Human Obstacle Course
This exercise requires at least a corridor's width of space, but obstacles from the classroom can be incorporated into the activity if space is tight. It also requires a blindfold.  It's an ideal one for when you have a group that need to be active to remain focused as the whole group can participate in one go, but your attention for safety can be focused on the parts with risk.

One 'adventurer' is selected and three 'spotters/guides' each time. The rest of the group will form the obstacle course.

Now imagine a scene from Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider, where the adventurer is negotiating an obstacle course with swinging pendulum blades, rotating gears, puffs of flames, spikes that repeatedly pop out of a wall and so on. This is what you are trying to create but with human bodies. An obstacle course that has students working in pairs or threes with arms/legs/bodies that create shapes to step over or crawl under; and repetitive and regularly timed movements (2/3 seconds between each movement at least) that mimic the kind of obstacles I mentioned above. When setting this up, remind students that it should be a little bit challenging but achievable- this is about building trust and confidence remember! If a situation ever looks like becoming dangerous e.g. you are swinging your arm to create an obstacle and you can tell that at the current pace and direction the adventurer will connect with your arm, stop swinging it. Or as a teacher, intervene. Safety first.

Before starting, brief the whole group on the purpose of the exercise. It's about building trust, communicating and giving directions, and working as a team (which includes the people of the obstacles too) to give each adventurer an experience and to build their confidence. There should be no practical jokes. Ever. That's so important. Jokes in this situation destroy trust and after one the whole exercise can fall apart.

Then take your spotters/guides. It is their primary responsibility to ensure the safety of the adventurer (the adventurer will be blindfolded for the obstacle course so they must be the eyes of the person). Brief them on basic safety, keeping an eye on the adventurer's head, not letting them fall, etc. Then their secondary objective is to guide them through the obstacle course. Two spotters hold the adventurer's hands and the third stays behind/in front and helps to give verbal directions to the adventurer.

Then take your adventurer. Reassure them on being safe for five reasons- 3 spotters, 1 teacher watching/intervening for safety and 1 group of people as 'obstacles with awareness'. Then blindfold them. From this point on, they should never ever be left with out someone physically connected to them (it's disconcerting to be blindfolded without the safety line of physical contact) So ask the two spotters to take the person's hands and not to let go until the adventurer is through the obstacle course.

Then when everyone is ready, start the rhythm of the obstacle course, (remember steady, rhythmic movements) and then help your adventurer to pass through it. The spotters should be talking to them all the time. This is also an exercise in communication- the adventurer can't see, so the spotters have to describe what's coming, direct how to pass it and reassure/congratulate throughout.

Then when they have finished, change the spotters, change the adventurers and get the obstacle course to quickly change it up for new combinations/new obstacles.

And watch as that early year ice melts away...


Lessons to be learned: A teacher speaks out...

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When Sam Burton began teaching three years ago, he was determined to thrive. But after spells at an academy and a special educational needs school in the UK, he's had enough. Here, he tells the story of how even an energetic young teacher can struggle with the demands of modern teaching.

And another-



I'm very, very, very lucky and grateful to be a teacher at ISB.

Friday 29 August 2014

Five Truths

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What are the differences between five of the most influential European theatre practitioners of the 20th century? How would these five directors work with the actress playing Ophelia in the famous mad scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet? What would they ask the actress to do and how would they ask the actress to behave?

A video installation looking at these questions, called Five Truths and commissioned by the V&A in partnership with the National Theatre was created by a group of contemporary theatre makers lead by director Katie Mitchell. The multi-screen installation brings together five interpretations of Ophelia's madness in Hamlet. Ten screens of varying sizes simultaneously play films of Ophelia interpreted dramatically through the lens of Constantin Stanislavski, Antonin Artaud, Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski and Peter Brook.


Tickets, Tickets, Tickets!

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For this post, and others in the future, I want to share some of the tickets I and our department have purchased for upcoming theatre and dance performances. You may be interested in hearing my take on what is interesting to see in Belgium (and further afield) in the coming months...

First a bit of background. I have so far found two pretty good venues in Belgium for cutting-edge performance:
The first is in Brussels and it's called Kaai theatre, it's located near the Yser metro stop. It has a range of performance showing, anything from dance, to fringe theatre, to live art, some of which is in English.
The second venue is De Singel which is in Antwerp. This is a much bigger venue than Kaai and hosts many bigger scale international companies, again in theatre, dance and music. It's a beautiful venue and the shows are amazing, but expect to pay anything up to 50 euros for a ticket.

And the shows:

- Showing at the Kaai from 23/10-25/10 is a new show by Forced Entertainment, (A UK company that have been making experimental theatre for 30 years already, funny, unusual and thought-provoking often with a discussion of theatrical principles running through their work as well as some social/political content). Their piece The Notebook will probably be pretty sparse in 'showiness' and flair, just like the picture below, but will be an interesting delivery of some powerful messages from the book by Agota Kristof.
"The latest production by Forced Entertainment is based on the highly acclaimed novel The Notebook by the Hungarian writer Ágota Kristóf. The book tells the story of twin brothers evacuated to the Hungarian countryside during World War II, to stay at their impoverished grandmother’s farm. The unnamed narrators are social outsiders, surviving in and understanding the world by a harsh private code. Though strange and dysfunctional, the brothers are slowly revealed to be struggling moralists as Central Europe crumbles into vice, cruelty and opportunism. Kristof’s narrational language – bold, crisp and reduced – provides the basis for a compelling performance. The two performers stand side by side. Trapped in one voice and one shared perspective they tell their fascinating story, an unravelling knot of naïve logic, weaving dark and subversive humour from wartime hardships."
Tickets here


Next

- Showing at De Singel from 04/12 - 07/12 is a piece of dance from the Tanztheater Wuppertal, the company of the late great dance director Pina Bausch. If you haven't already seen the film by Wim Wenders- Pina, then you should. It's breathtaking! This performance of Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört at De Singel in my opinion is unmissable, even if you're not normally interested in dance. It's so accessible for all audiences and has some beautiful imagery and will be expertly executed.
"The title of this 1984 piece is half a line from the story of the infanticide ordered by King Herod, as described in the Gospel of Matthew. We see a stage shrouded in mist and covered with a thick layer of earth. It is an arid terrain dominated by an initially vague atmosphere of menace and tension. The battlefield of deep human emotions then becomes more tangible. Crime and punishment, love and farewell create deep wounds. We are confronted with the battle of the sexes – completely in keeping with the situation in the eighties. What is disconcerting is that all pity is omitted. Pina Bausch shows us violence in a way she had never done before or since: brutal and extremely physical."
Tickets here


Following that

-Still at De Singel but from 25/01/15- 28/01/15 is a performance from the wonderful Robert Wilson, (He makes visual feasts on stage with a grand aesthetic and often unusual but entrancing performances from his performers). His show of Les Negres will be as visual striking as it is powerful in it's content. 
"When Jean Genet was commissioned to write a play for black actors in 1948, he knew little of the African continent. However, the French author did know all about humiliation. He had spent his childhood in care-homes and ended up in a juvenile detention centre at the age of ten. Throughout his life he remained an outcast. The inspiration for ‘Les Nègres’ was a music box, built in the eighteenth century, in which four black pages kneeled before a white porcelain princess, and Genet imagined how it would be if he changed around the skin colour of these figures. ‘Les Nègres’ became an almost clownish play in which all is artifice and pretext. Which is precisely what the director Robert Wilson wanted!"
Tickets here


Then

-I'm off to see two shows from an American company The Wooster Group, (of which ISB's very own theatre construction teacher Jim Clayburgh is a founding member). The Wooster Group is an experimental theatre company who's work consists of a combination of words, performance and technology. The company is also recognized for launching the careers of many actors, including Willem Defoe and Spalding Gray. 

Their first piece is showing at the Kaai from the 19/05/15- 23/05/15, called CRY, TROJANS! and it's based on Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida
"CRY, TROJANS! originated as a coproduction with the Royal Shakespeare Company of Troilus and Cressida at the World Shakespeare Festival in conjunction with the London 2012 Olympics. In that collaboration, the two companies took opposite sides in the Trojan War: the Wooster Group staged the Trojan scenes while the RSC staged the Greek ones. Scenes with both Greeks and Trojans were staged by both, each side developing its own version. The companies worked separately and without consultation until they met a few weeks before performances to sew the two halves of the show together. The seam was intentionally left rough so that the contrast of artistic approaches remained a foreground feature of the production, accenting the face-off of warring cultures in the play."

Their second piece, showing the following week at De Singel from 28/05 - 31/05 is Early Shaker Spirituals.
"Early Shaker Spirituals’ is based on the music album of the same name by Sister R. Mildred Barker and her Shaker community in Sabbathday Lake (Maine). It consists of Shaker hymns recorded between 1963 and 1976. The Wooster Group sings the hymns as they sound on the album recording. The remaining fragments of the Shakers’ ecstatic dancing and physical gestures form the basis from which The Wooster Group develops simple dance patterns."

Thursday 28 August 2014

Last Chance Academy

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Last night on BBC1 was the show Last Chance Academy, a touching and inspiring insight into a school dedicated to excluded and disruptive students. And when I say dedicated, I really mean it. Those teachers don't give up.

Baverstock Academy have a promise, to get 100% of their students 5 C's at GCSE level, a seemingly impossible task. This is made especially difficult by both OFFSTEAD (who expect students to be present at school for a minimum of 25 hours a week) and by recent government education policy (which decrees that all students must achieve a pass in both Maths and English or face studying them again at college until 18).
For many of these students, attending school for two hours a day was a huge improvement on their previous situations, let alone focusing during this entire time. In 2013, 3900 students were permanently excluded from UK classrooms, so 2 hours a day for many of them was a near miracle. So Baverstock allowed them individual schedules, based on what they were capable of, not on the national minimum. So because of this flexibility from the school combined with achievable goal setting and personal support, they were getting students back into classes everyday and for increasingly longer periods.


Even with figures such as that 3900 students (given up on), the government in recent years has been increasing the weight of exams in the UK, particularly in the 3 R's (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmatic), and decreasing funding and support for more practical and vocational courses. But what about engaging students like this through more practical courses, teaching them that they can achieve first and then helping them pick up English, Maths and Science on the way. In many cases, I'm sure students avoid engaging in those 'scary' subjects because of the overwhelming importance that the government puts on them and therefore the overwhelming pressure there is on students to achieve in them.


But even with the odds that Baverstock were faced with they were keeping their promise. They had some failures and missed some targets for sure, but they kept their promise with their pass rate. 100% of students received at least 5 C's, even if that wasn't enough for the government. And this was because the teachers and management of this school were so, so committed to their students. Even when 5 boys ambushed and heavily assaulted another boy, normally an inexcusable offense for any school, the staff worked out a way to keep these 5 boys in the system in the hope of breaking the cycle they were in. So what did they do? The teachers stayed after school to teach those kids after normal hours.

Absolutely inspiring and impressive, Baverstock has shown Britain that it is possible for any student to achieve, as long as you never, ever give up on them. We need more places like Baverstock, and maybe all schools can learn something from them when it comes to disruptive and underachieving students.

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Starting to earn some 'reputation capital', and embarking on an adventure...

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So I'm starting a blog and the first question I have (and you may too) is why?


One answer is that a while back I listened to a really interesting TED Talk from Rachel Botsman about the economy of trust and influence in our online communities, and the thought of what that might mean for me really stuck in my mind. 


It simmered there for a while, marinating with some other ingredients, and after talking to some people at the school where I work (The International School of Brussels), those thoughts have emerged as a blog and a twitter profile so far. 


I'm embarking on a new journey with these two ships, one for publicizing and promoting the activities my classes and I undertake at school(the Twitter feed) and one for my own personal think tank (this blog). I don't know what I'll find on my journey, but my hope is that I am able, in my own small way, to enrich my teaching, my learning, my art and all that of my colleagues and students too. I will post the things that interest me and spark my imagination, the pedagogues and strategies I encounter in my teaching and some of the work I do at school with my classes, among other things I'm sure.


I will be looking for guidance from others during the first steps of this blogging adventure and I hope to pick up a few passengers on the way, for sure.


So, bon voyage (to me) and away we go...