It is now the end of day two at the Merstone School Residency. We are working with three schools with varying needs and abilities, Merstone, our hosts, is a school for children with profound and complex needs, Forest Wood is a school for children with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour and Smith's Wood College is a mainstream school. We are all working together with their staff to create a dance performance this Friday. The participants are boys and girls between 12 and 16 years old.
The residency started yesterday morning literally with the 3 schools in separate corners of the room. By the end of today it was hard to tell who was from each school as they played together in the break. The students are all bonding so beautifully. They play with each other at lunchtime and are learning some very specific things about how each other communicates and behaves.
So far we have made a group warm up sequence which we revisit at the beginning of each session exploring different qualities- tired and elastic/ 'yawny'; funky; heavy limbed; energetic etc.; explored each other's range of movement through massage and manipulation tasks; created travelling duets; created duets through different ways of touching; and begun a process of watching, feeding back and selecting material. We have been working in very close pairs and are currently looking at ways in which pairs can be swapped more so that more friendships are created.
The staff at all schools have been particularly sensitive,knowledgeable and supportive of the students, the choreographic process and our needs as well. Whilst exhausted, we are also absolutely thrilled and inspired to be here.
