Community Outreach: Opera Workshops for Schools
Engaging schools with free workshops.
Core to Ensemble OrQuesta’s charitable aims, our goal is to share our love of opera and improve accessibility through various outreach initiatives. One of our initiatives is focused on working with children in varied, dynamic, and interactive workshops that make it truly engaging and memorable.
You can find more information below regarding our latest workshops at Christ Church C.E. Primary and Nursery Academy in St Leonards-on-Sea and Sacred Heart Catholic Primary School in Hastings.
Following the positive response, EO have made a commitment to develop this exciting Outreach initiative into a programme of regular opera workshops in schools and with other community groups, alongside as many opera performance projects as possible.
Ensemble OrQuesta recognise the importance of targeting levelling up for culture places and priority places wherever possible, and we are committed to working in partnership with local organisations and music education hubs.
Marcio and Helen have built a strong partnership with Awards for Young Musicians (which works under the auspices of the Youth Music Network supporting children from low-income families, helping them to overcome financial and social barriers and enabling them to fulfil their musical potential). AYM is committed to promoting musical inclusion and addressing key barriers to young people’s progression, and they support our aim to offer school children interactive and engaging encounters with opera.
Taking Les Indes Galantes to schools.
During the performance run of Rameau's Les Indes Galantes at The Cockpit in February 2022, our Artistic Director, Marcio da Silva, and Company Member and Production Manager, Helen May, launched the first phase of our new programme by running opera workshops in two primary schools in Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea.
In the two schools visited by Marcio and Helen, the children were encouraged to explore ideas about how emotion is expressed in opera, and how different characters are brought to life. The children were introduced to physical theatre techniques and were invited to work in groups experimenting with their own creative and imaginative responses to some of the visual images and ideas that the company had recently developed in Les Indes Galantes. They explored how to work individually and together using their hands and bodies to create a storm, the movement of a boat, the eruption of a volcano, the growth of flowers, and flight of butterflies.
The response.
The children responded with enthusiasm to learning the punchy rhythmic patterns and mirrored dance elements of the most famous interlude of the opera. Rameau's music may date back to the 17th-century, but his melodic lines are catchy, and his percussive instrumentation immediately gets the feet stomping. The children explored pulse, space, time, and force, and experimented with body percussion, lead and response, and ripple effects.
At the end of the session, the children were able to talk confidently about what they had learned; they recorded this in their workbooks and added their feedback on the workshop.
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We need your support.
To continue to grow our Community activities as well as our productions and Academy, we need your support. From small donations to grants and foundations, every little bit helps us continue to deliver our charitable goals.