Teachers know the importance of bringing in experts to enhance lessons and we know that the value cannot be measured by a tick on a checklist but through improved confidence and skills as well as getting a glimpse of how professionals work.
Laura Harvey is one of a team of animateurs for Rambert Dance Company and she sees the positive effects on students first hand. Each member of the Rambert animateur team is trained and experienced in dance, performance, as well as teaching, and so understands how to get the best from young people.
She says: ‘We work with teenagers who are often embarrassed and lack confidence and experience. The ones who lack experience can be willing to try and that is great.
‘But the thing about dancing is that it is not just about getting the movements right. It shows the person as well and there is a thing with young people about not wanting to look silly, or there is too much focus on getting it right and not being allowed to get it wrong. Through our workshops, we try to make dance a creative exploration and an experience for them to understand the professional dance world. It’s about opening their eyes.’
The company links up with local theatres and schools once the tour is announced. Laura explains: ‘Once the tour is decided we send out details to the schools in the area. This way, teachers can book a workshop and the performance. The two tie in together – the students learn the repertoire as well as movements from the dance in the workshop and then they see the performance – it gives the context.
‘A session introduces Rambert as a company as a way of passing on a bit of the heritage of the company. We give them a contemporary dance warmup in the Merce Cunningham style because that’s what our dancers train in here. This is quite a balletic style but we mix it up with cardio and strengthening exercises. We then teach a section of the repertoire.
‘Last week I was teaching a Swansong workshop which is a very old piece of work not in our current rep but because it’s on the syllabus teachers wanted their students to learn movements from it.
‘Some of our workshops are tailor made but a standard workshop is six hours. We will do one and a half hours technique class and then we will do a nice big section of repertoire. After this we will do some creative work around the rep, and this introduces the young people to choreography. They might need to understand a performance so the focus will be on performance skills. But the repertoire is the starting point.’
In addition, Laura will work on technique – taking students through exercises from standing up, alignment and flexibility, coordination, spatial awareness and introducing floor work and also the idea of travelling, using the space. She explains: ‘This helps with confidence – the travelling and exploring the space really helps them to come out of their shell. There is a mix of girls and boys in our workshop; the great thing about contemporary dance is that it doesn’t have the same stigma as ballet!’
For details of Rambert Dance Company’s performance and workshop programme, please visit www.rambert.org.uk.
Image Richard Jemison