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 was about trying to find a way for our classes to collaborate. In the end we agreed to work independently for a couple of weeks, with our own students then to bring that stuff together for a final presentation, exploring the themes of dream, war, a race and crowds. With my Performance students, we explored the themes through silent movement pieces, students devising each part in small groups. With the Voice students, Cat looked at creating vocal soundscapes, with song, sounds and words.

After two weeks of workshops and creating some material, we brought the classes together to watch what each had made and then we mixed up the students into groups to work together on combining it into one piece.

This video is the result of two of the themes: war and crowds (which became protest). 

Thanks to Lisa O'Leary for the filming and editing.

The exciting part of this project was that students had to leave their comfort zones in order to bring the whole project together. Performance students at this age are much more comfortable with words, speaking tends to be easier than moving or expressing yourself through the body, and Voice students who are more confident with singing, need an opportunity to explore a much wider range of vocal sounds.

Bringing the students together in this way also helped elevate the performances from the regularity and safety of our individual classrooms. Adding some ceremony to the event lifted it to a new level and brought something special out of the students. And as a result, a rich and quite different final presentation was delivered.

Collaboration. It's great.