A taster of Another Dance Company's education work in secondary schools and a sample of the feedback received from participants and teachers:
Cross- Curricular Dance
Epithet: Dance & Text Workshop
at... Thomas a Becket Catholic School, Wakefield.
Year 10 & 11 GCSE Dance pupils watched Another Dance Company's professional dance performance of the work 'Epithet' before participating in a 2 hour creative workshop.
Pupils learnt professional repertory, and created their own movement from several text-based tasks.
These included; making movements from syllables, conveying a charcter's emotional journey through a line graph and then into movement, improvising to punctuation, to mention a few.
"The performance was excellent and the ability of all the dancers was impressive... The teacher in the session was able to fully explain the tasks and draw out some wonderful solo pieces from the group. All in all I thought it has been an exceptional workshop!"
"Every pupil was challenged both with technique and also choreographic ability. It was excellent throughout."
"I think some will actually use this in their own choreography."
Head of P.E, Thomas a Becket Catholic School, Wakefield.
"It was a good pace and the right standard for everyone." Y11 participant.
"I thought it was clever how the syllable matched the movement." Y10 participant.
Creative Dance P.E.
at... East Hill S.E.N Secondary School, Sheffield.
Y7 & Y9 pupils created a dance each with Laura Aldridge over 4 sessions. Each dance used a folk tale as the stimulus to make movement. The pupils learnt movement phrases and added their own imaginative ideas to build a complete dance. The finished dances were performed at a Creative Arts Performance within the school to celebrate their achievements.
"We all commented on your style, instruction, voice and manner- it was terrific! It developed children's understanding of the story."
Y9 Teacher, East Hill Secondary, Sheffield.
"All the objectives were covered skillfully- the pupils cooperation and performance exceeded my expectations- I was very impressed by the structured work you did leading up to the dance. I would like to thank you for the high standard of teaching you brought to Arts Week and the joy and enthusiasm your work generated."
Y7 Teacher, East Hill Secondary, Sheffield
