Celebrating its fifth year, the recent Music & Drama Education Expo at Olympia proved to be an exciting, eclectic mix of workshops, seminars and exhibitors. Susan Elkin brings us a flavour of events
You can hear the cavernous Olympia Central space rattling with trumpet blasts, people trying out pianos before you even get up the stairs. And a walk round the edge past the curtained off sessions spaces reveals the rhythmic sound of 100 teachers trying out Stomp-style body percussion. Nearby, pianist Nancy Litten is demonstrating how pianists can support singers. At the same time others are learning how to use immersive theatre in education.
Welcome to the busy, buzzy two days which is the annual Music and Drama Education Expo held at Olympia on 9 and 10 February and organised by Rhinegold. Ink Pellet is one of the event’s media partners. Each year it is attended by around 2.500 people from 40 countries. There is no admission charge.
It’s always an interesting two days with plenty going on to support arts teachers of all sorts. The 2017 Expo was stronger in music than in drama but there are so many overlaps that much of the professional development is broadly relevant to any teacher working in the arts field with musical theatre being an obvious example of crossover.
Now in its fifth year Music and Drama Education Expo has developed a distinctive style which is part conference and part exhibition. This time there were 150 exhibitors including musical instrument retailers, publishers, tour organisers, providers of digital solutions including sound and light for productions, examining and awarding bodies, training organisations and much more. I had a long chat, for example, with someone on the Stentor Orchestral Stringed Instruments stand about the sorts of instrument a beginner child might need and what he or she might progress to.
Elsewhere people were trying out cost-effective, technicoloured plastic trumpets and other “brass” instruments now widely used for beginners. Others were buying music or collecting information about, for example, acquiring the rights to perform Camelot, Brigadoon or Paint Your Wagon all of which are published by Faber. Or what about Lin Marsh’s Nobody Wants to Be A Donkey, a primary school musical nativity play with 36 speaking parts?
In the centre of the exhibition centre, next to the rather pricey Networking Café is the “Performance Space”. A whole series of things happen here on a raised platform from which you can learn informally while you rest your legs. I watched two people from Theatre Workout demonstrating the principles of safe stage combat – eye contract is crucial, I learned. And it has to be done properly. That is why, if you’re staging, say, Romeo and Juliet, you need to start rehearsing your fight scenes several weeks before you tackle the rest of it. Theatre Workout is available to deliver bespoke workshops (www.theatreworkout.com)
At other times on the Performance Space there was, among other things, a “fireside” chat with musical theatre composers Stiles and Drew, a performance of favourite songs by Special Virtuosi, a music education organisation for children and adults with learning difficulties – and the two days kicked off with the band of the Coldstream Guards. The flavour is both varied and eclectic.
There were more than 80 sessions across the two days with the network speed-date session new for 2017. The idea was to help attendees find like minded people to work with and for mutual support. And this year many of the drama sessions were in the spacious “Rhinegold Theatre” which was quieter and worked better than in previous years. Next to that was a “Tech Theatre” the venue for sessions on, for instance, Stage Lighting (presented by Skip Mort) and several different sorts of notation software.
“The space” offered a workshop on mask and musical theatre in education, physical drama techniques and a session led by Disney Teaching Artists based round The Circle of Life from The Lion King showing how to develop a musical theatre scene. Meanwhile in the Seminar Theatre music teachers were learning about setting fees and developing a private practice – among other things. Plenty of discussion and learning happened at TeachMeet Drama and TeachMeet Music in the Sharing Lab too – peer-to-peer experience sharing about, for example, working with SEND students.
It all added up to a very full programme of CPD opportunity for anyone working in arts education fully justifying the cost (fares. cover and so on) to schools which released teachers to attend. Thanks, Rhinegold.
If you missed it, try and get there next year or the one-day Expo in Manchester this October.