ST GILES ARTS WEEK

Monday

Today we spent the whole day at St Giles School and ran workshops with the students and worked on their performances and their dances. As we had already got to now the students we started the session with a vocal and physical warm up. I think that this was really good to start with as it woke up the students and got them ready for the day ahead as a warm up should do. More than that it gave the students an insight into our everyday life at BRIT and it gives them the skills within theatre and the arts to get ready for rehearsals and performances. We taught the students how to siren their voice through the exercise of visualising a man on the ledge jumping off and as he falls the voice gets lower and the same in reverse. I think that by adding a visual element to this exercise not only made it more fun and enjoyable to do but also it also gives the students something to follow and lead from so that they were all able to be involved. This exercise also allowed the students to explore and develop the vocal range so that they can use their voices effectively and efficiently.

We also played the vocal warm up game, Boom Chicka, this is a call and response game where the group have to copy the leader and what they say. This started off as a good game to warm up the group and to get everyone working together and concentrating. Also it is a really fun game to get everyone energised and getting involved in the game. As a result of our group picking up this game really quickly and easily we developed it so that each different round of the game was done in a different accent or character. This worked really well as we were able to work on their characterisation for some of the dances, for example doing it as a moody teenager helped them to get into the idea, theme and characters of the “Paint It Black” dance. We went even further with this game by letting the student participate in the choices of what style we do the exercise in, this allowed the students to take ownership of the exercise and get more involved with the game.

After the vocal warm up we lead a physical warm up for the students so that they could feel ready to do the dances and to get their bodies ready and awake for the sessions ahead. As all of our students, except one, are in wheelchairs we focused on warming the top half of the body up by wiggling our fingers and circling our arms and wrists and shaking out the top half of the body. This made sure that everyone was included in the warm up and that it was suitable for all the members of the group to join in with. We then played a game called shape it, where we would name a shape or a person, for example a moody teenager and the students would have to take form of that shape. I think that this exercise worked quite well as it got the students moving around and thinking about making their own positions so that they were being creative independently and thinking for themselves. However we only did this game individually and I think that if we play it again we could get them interacting with each other and creating images together so that we are pushing them and developing the games. This would also make them work together and collaborate their ideas.

We then spent the rest of the morning working on and choreographing the dance moves to “Paint It Black”. We used all the games that we had been working on to lead into the dance that we have been doing. For example we used the actions from our version of Zip, Zap, Bong as stock movements and poses for the sequence. I think that this was really good as the student had already learnt the movements so they were comfortable and confident in doing them. We also made sure that we got a lot of ideas from the students by doing a spider diagram of their ideas with the song on in the background, we did this so that the performance had their ideas in it and so that they are engaged and learning and developing their skills as well as performing.

In the afternoon we did an arts and craft session where we made props for the performances. For example those in the “Paint It Black” routine made posters for their performance and those in “The Happening” made love hearts. I think that as we had been working the whole morning, the craft session allowed the afternoon to be more relaxed but at the same time the  students were all still being engaged and creating their own work for their performance. This session was really good as the arts included all the students, even the PMLD students, as they could touch the material and get involved making things. The feel of the material and could also worked with the sensory element that is really important for the PMLD students, so that they could be engaged through all the senses.

Tuesday  

Today we were with the students for the morning, working and developing the routines that had been created and running workshops with the students. In the warm up I took on the role of a workshop leader as part of my role as an Artistic Facilitator as I lead the group in the vocal warm up by running exercises that engage the facial muscles and the vocal cords. I did exercises such as the siren with the voice, humming in a siren, chewing toffee and making the face as big as possible and as small as possible. I ran these exercises as they wake up your face by engaging all the different muscles in the face to get them ready for facile expressions and being free and open with your face as a part of characterisation. Also they loosen up the vocal cords, face and tongue so that you can create better sounds with the voice and be clearer when you speak on stage. I hope that these exercises will be able to help the students when they are acting on stage and saying their lines as well as in the song routines, meaning that they can adapt them to their other creative needs. I also did tongue twisters with the group however I made the do a beat along side the tongue twister, this was so that the PMLD students could be involved in the exercise. From the speaking to the teacher I have learnt that a sound or a beat involves them in the exercise as they are engaged on a sensory level, because of this I adapted the tongue twister game by adding a beat. I think that this made the game more inclusive for all of the students involved, especially as we are working with two groups with very different abilities, I think games like this offer different elements to each group, challenging and engaging both at the same time.

Linking into the sensory element of the exercises that engage the students we did an exercise where we as a group created a beat/rhythm together by one person adding a new beat to the music one by one. The PMLD students also got procession instruments to shake and hit and play to help to create the music as a group. I think that as an exercise this worked really well as it included all of the students in the group and made us all work together by listening to each other and connecting together to create a piece of art in a really simple way. Although this was a really good game to play I found that after a few times of playing it, I think that for some of the students it wasn’t challenging enough and after a time they got disengaged from the exercise and we had to move on quickly.

We also spent some time with just the PMLD students and in this time we took the students outside to look at the flowers, and listened to songs and ripped tissue paper with them to create flowers. This was really enlightening for me as it showed me how important it is for the PMLD students to be engaged with all the senses and they are more included by experiencing through sound and sight and touch. It also showed me how to communicate with the students without being able to speak and how they enjoy communicating and doing the exercises and the arts with others. It also made me see that the arts can be even more important and engaging for PMLD students that conventional learning experiences for them as it can connect to them on a more sensory and creative level.

Wednesday

In today’s sessions I feel that I learnt a lot from some of the exercises that we have been doing. In the vocal warm up where we get the students to chew an imaginary piece of toffee normally only certain people in the group can be involved and included as some of the PMLD students have difficulty in doing it. However in today’s lesson when we did this warm up, to help engage the students with PMLD, we got a piece of play dough and rolled it on those students’ arms so that it can feel like toffee and they can be engaged through touch. This helped show me how you can adapt nearly any exercise or game to include all members of a group. At the start of the week I was concerned that we had to groups of students with opposing abilities and disabilities and that we wouldn’t want to cater for all of their needs through the exercises as some might be too easy for one group but challenging for another. However this showed me how I can add or adapt things to an exercise so that it can connect and include all members of the group and still be challenging for everyone as well. In this section I also took on the role as a supporter for the students as I worked with one of the PMLD students by rolling the play dough on his arm. I also helped the children decorate in the arts and crafts section and I helped a PMLD student to ripping and scrunching tissue paper. Through these interactions and exercises with the student I have learnt how to communicate with the students and challenge them and get the best out of them with the games that we play. Also through this role of supporting the students I learnt the importance of sensory games for the students to engage them in a more creative way. It showed me how to connect with the students and how to get to know them as individuals rather than as their disabilities.

Today we also went through the two routines and worked on and developed them. From this experience we have learnt that repetition through the week on the performances makes it stay in the students minds and so that it can become natural and easy for them to do and more enjoyable rather than having to overly think about it. This is also good as it gives the students the idea of what we do in our rehearsal process and gives them the skills that they need when creating work.   

Friday

Today was our last day at St Giles so our focus was on making sure that the students were happy and confident in their dance routines. At the end of our morning we had a small party with our group to say goodbye and thank you to them, as well as us, as I feel that I have learnt and got a lot from this process.

We began with our vocal and physical warm up, as we have been doing this throughout the week, I feel that the students feel comfortable in the exercises and are able to see the benefits within the voices in their performances. Also at this point we allowed some of the students to run some of the tongue twisters or the Boom Chicka game and I think that this helped to build the students confidence when speaking in front of a group as they had the responsibility of leading the group. This was a unique and subtle way to get the students more comfortable talking to a group and consequently hopefully more comfortable on stage and performing as they have had some experience in being the centre of attention in a large group, in a more formal setting than with their friends.

We then went through both routines; repeating and refining them so that they could be ready for the performance. From the week I found that repletion was really important as I helped the students to remember their routines and to have them embedded in their minds. Also I found that this has made them more confident in the performance and the routines and consequently allowed them to work on the acting side and facile expressions as well as being able to enjoy it more because they have got the routine solid in their minds.