We offer quality Balinese and African workshops by experienced practitioners in schools and youth communities, that provide rich and stimulating experiences across 'the arts' involving music, dance, art, craft and design. We intend to help schools enrich and extend their teaching of the National Curriculum, as well as tailor making our Workshops to the broader spectrum of youth communities, by providing our specialist knowledge and experience in a range of artistic and cultural contexts. In our workshops, the participants are actively involved, take a full part in the creative process and experience a sense of pride and achievement.
Kala the Arts workshops and performances of Indian dance, music and visual arts. Kala the Arts works mainly with primary and middle schools in south and south western regions. The work is mainly workshops and residencies, which raise an awareness and understanding of Asian Culture and Arts. The schools are offered workshops leading to performances where the pupils dress up in costumes brought by the company members. There are currently Sushmita Patel, the artistic director, Gudrun Martins and Gitanjali Praharaj leading the dance sessions. Ashok Patel works on the visual arts section making back-drops and sculptures with pupils. Surjit Singh brings a whole range of Indian musical instruments, which he teaches the children to play and perform. The company also offers performances by tutors where the pupils get to see professional dancers and musicians.
Assembly: an informal introduction of Ghana and Africa in general, celebrating the differences and drawing strength in the similarities and diversity of cultures in the UK and contributions interspersed with rhythm clapping and music and hand jive. Storytelling: encouraging listening, participation, recall, discussion, retelling, either through drama, dance or performance of the story. Opening doors into another culture, exploring the hidden meaning of the morals of the story, drawing out citizenship, PSHE. Dance: improvised using space, gestures, facial expression and music from Africa generally. Retell stories. Music: texture, pitch, tempo, duration, composing, listening to African rhythms and drumming. Fabric Arts: Ghanaian traditional printing using Adinkra printing motifs on blocks, tie and dye, safe batik. The background of each art-form is explained. The children are allowed to have ownership and encouraged to fully participate actively as well as listening.
Ed Oxley
Ed offers workshops in didjeridoo playing. Groups of up to 30 children can participate, making and decorating their own didjeridoos and then learning to play them. Short performances can be arranged for the whole school. For longer residencies, Ed sometimes works with a choregrapher. Quote: 'Excellent, this is one of the best days we have ever had'.
Random workshops begin with a high energy technical warm-up reflecting the movement style of the company. The warm up is followed by teaching of repertory or creative choreographic tasks. The tasks set will reflect the way that the company work in the studio and will come from a range of stimuli including mathematical and spatial ideas. Random also offer full day and longer residencies working with technology, such as computer animation, as an alternative choreographic stimulus.
Union Dance are a contemporary dance Company whose cutting edge dance styles and use of digital media make their performances and education programme particularly accessible for young people. They run Easter and summer Courses as well as a youth performance group. They also offer dance workshops and residencies based on performance work, offering the unique opportunity to learn an exciting synergy of dance styles, repertoire and gain an insight into the themes and creative processes used by the Company.
