We talk to Artists about their creative engagement work with us and alongside feedback from Headteachers and Class teachers, this helps to inform our Participate programme and to develop new work. Thanks to all the fantastic and highly skilled Artists who have worked with us, sharing their thoughts about the work and also how much thought, planning and care goes into delivering a creative workshop.
Teachers were often so impressed with the session they spoke to me about using it as a springboard to other connected areas or inspiration for new activities and lessons.
- I had a wonderful, rewarding time and it’s great to develop and polish my offering for younger audiences further.
Children often comment on how much better I am than them and how they feel they cannot perform the task. I then use this opportunity to speak to the group about practice and perseverance and how we should expect failure and difficulty when we embark upon something new and that it is the act of repeating the process that makes the skill. So the practice itself is the thing to be embraced, not the desire to finish to a certain ideal.
- For me I love facilitating as it gives me an opportunity to hone my craft in taking participants through a process and to a goal, and using that as a vehicle to teach them about the different mindsets I myself had to achieve to become an artist.
- Keep doing with you are doing guys. Its hard enough to get high professional quality arts access in the city in some cases and its brilliant that you are bringing that access out into communities that would otherwise not get to access it at all.
You are absolutely wonderful and a real pleasure to work with!!
Different individuals take different things from the workshops, I try and find out if someone isn’t enjoying the experience and in conjunction with the teaching staff we work on strategies to make the process as inclusive as possible.
- My work and practice is in a constant state of flux, adapting and changing from job to job, I find this aspect of my work one of the most rewarding parts, variety is indeed the spice of life. But, hearing the stories that participants want to tell is a fundamental driver in why I do these workshops.
- We are as humans natural social story-tellers and I like to think that I promote that voice and journey alongside the participants so that we both can flourish creatively.
- The outcomes for us were to simply engage with a new community, expose them to a different teaching style, diverse music, new instruments, new rhythms, and to get them excited about playing and learning together.
- We wanted both the staff and students to get excited and curious about music and instruments from the African & Afro Latin Diaspora so their interest and exploration transcends beyond our workshop.