Jazz Improvisations
We organised the "Jazz Improvisations" project as an educational project featuring Art, Music, Dance and Drama to link in with the "Brazilian Inspiration" season at riverhouse, an exhibition by Brazilian artist Ana Maria Pacheco. In October and November 2005 the Mike Outram Trio hosted a number of one-day Jazz Composition Workshops for AS-level students from Esher College and Hinchley Wood School. The project culminated in a wonderful evening performance at Esher College on 22nd March 2006. Taking Jazz, Brazilian music and the art of Ana-Maria Pacheco as their influences, students from Hinchley Wood School and Esher College - taught by tutors from the Laban Centre in London - created a dance piece based on the themes of Ana-Maria's prints. The Mike Outram Trio played the excellent jazz pieces composed by 21 AS-level music students from the two schools, as well as some of their own music inspired by the same exhibition. Art students from Rydens School had taken Ana's prints as their inspiration for the backdrop which they painted for the performance. In the South American Experience, 120 Year 2 children from Ashley, Chandlers Field and Walton Oak schools enjoyed The Magic Sandals - a Peruvian folk tale - and drama improvisation workshops with Marleen Vermeulen of TamTam Theatre on 23rd/24th February, which also incorporated a visit to the exhibition at the Robert Phillips Gallery.