Impact- in an hour.

Being an artist or teacher that drops in with a group for a short session, an hour or two infrequently or as a one-off, comes with some great privileges. Last week I had the pleasure of working with The International Schools Theatre Association (ISTA), as an...

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A student's passion for Performance...

Special words written by one of my fourteen year old students about why they are passionate about performance: "For me, nothing is stronger than a bond created from theatre making. People who would have been strangers now friends, fellow innovators and dreamers,...

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An AudioVisual Banquet. Part 2- This time with lasers!

The second set of groups working to integrate multimedia live-performance software (Isadora) with experimental spoken word performance at ISB. This time with lasers, smoke and more varied video effects! Thanks again to Ed Grody, Lisa...

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An AudioVisual Banquet. Intermediality- a collaboration,

This morning at ISB, Ed Grody, Lisa O'Leary and Francesco Di Paolo (the Theatre Lighting, Sound and Video teachers) and I collaborated for a one-off class, in which we wanted to bring our two groups of students together for a mini-project. The aim was...

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Performing with Voice- a collaboration.

Last year, me and a colleague of mine, Cat Leclerc, who teaches The Voice Works class here (https://twitter.com/MS_VoiceWorks), had one of our exciting discussions, which always tend to lead to us working on some new idea together. This particular conversation...

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A letter to Charlie...

I don't have a lot to add, just to say how wonderful this letter is and what a fantastic team they must have at Barrowford. ...

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Moments of Magic

I have just finished teaching one of my favourite classes of the year. As part of the Expressive Arts Program here at ISB, I teach Grade 1 and right now we are just starting of the program for this year. It's week two and last week I introduced students to the...

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Setting Up A Teacher's Blog

Stumbled across this interesting resource over the weekend, while thinking about blogging. Although the step-by-step's are specifically for Edublogs.org there is still some useful advice for newbies... http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/personal-bloggin...

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The Power Of One Word (Part 2)

The other half of my Advanced Performance Works class are also going through 'The Power of' process at the moment and creating some equally interesting performances, in very short amounts of time. Here's one in response to this photo:  The word this...

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Artist Toolbox: To Roll, To Crease, To Fold, To Store...

In 1972, Richard Serra presented his (apparently famous) Verb List, after using it to great success in his sculpture work. In 2006, I was presented with what I think must be a version of this from one of my lecturers at University. Now looking back, being presented...

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The Power Of One Word

First thing Monday morning. Kids drag their feet into class. The lesson drags by as kids half sleep, half interact. By the time they've left they're just waking up, but too little too late. Right? Wrong. This morning The Advanced Performance Works class...

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(read in a stock Cockney accent) "Get your Blogger Widgets! Come get your Blogger Widgets!"

A resource for great Blogger Widgets here. I installed the Twitter Feed and the Popular Posts to this blog. To add Labels as a top bar on your blog (see image), look here. ...

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Artist Toolbox: Building trust. Building a team.

As it's that time of the year when our groups of students are new, where students actually coming into physical contact with each other is only through awkward hugs or unfriendly 'roughhousing', and when there is more ice in the classroom than at the antarctic,...

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Lessons to be learned: A teacher speaks out...

When Sam Burton began teaching three years ago, he was determined to thrive. But after spells at an academy and a special educational needs school in the UK, he's had enough. Here, he tells the story of how even an energetic young teacher can struggle with the...

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Making a Scene: 11 Performances

The year's best performers star in 11 original (very) short films directed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. ...

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Five Truths

What are the differences between five of the most influential European theatre practitioners of the 20th century? How would these five directors work with the actress playing Ophelia in the famous mad scene in Shakespeare's Hamlet? What would they ask the...

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Factories and Guns. But not as you know them...

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Tickets, Tickets, Tickets!

For this post, and others in the future, I want to share some of the tickets I and our department have purchased for upcoming theatre and dance performances. You may be interested in hearing my take on what is interesting to see in Belgium (and further afield)...

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Last Chance Academy

Last night on BBC1 was the show Last Chance Academy, a touching and inspiring insight into a school dedicated to excluded and disruptive students. And when I say dedicated, I really mean it. Those teachers don't give up. Baverstock Academy have a promise,...

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Starting to earn some 'reputation capital', and embarking on an adventure...

So I'm starting a blog and the first question I have (and you may too) is why? One answer is that a while back I listened to a really interesting TED Talk from Rachel Botsman about the economy of trust and influence in our online communities,...

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