People Dancing

Jasmine Fitter on Random Dance creating abstract dance performance for children

In summer 2000 Random Dance worked with a group of children aged ten and under on creation of the site specific performance The Field. It was a departure for artistic director Wayne McGregor and the Company as the majority of Random's previous education work had focussed on participants' aged 12 and over. This had been a policy decision that had arisen from the content of our professional touring works. The Millennarium, Sulphur 16 and Aeon were made with an 'adult' audience in mind, and the sophisticated abstract concepts and content of the work and the length of them (seventy minutes) prohibited the appeal and suitability for a younger audience.

However, the experience of working with these 30 energetic, inquisitive and inspiring children prompted McGregor to think about contemporary dance and more specifically Random's work in relation to this younger age group. There seemed to be opportunities for children in primary education to participate in high quality dance work but further research highlighted the lack of non-narrative dance and theatre work made for a younger audience, especially in the UK.

Although other choreographers have created performance work for children it seems to have a more narrative base and is very different in creative drive from Random's work. McGregor decided that he wished to explore the potential of creating a piece of non-narrative dance work for this age group, an audience who are used to processing abstract information and assimilating a range of non literal signs throughout their everyday lives through the internet, music videos and video games. The drive behind the project was to address the notion of developing a coherent visual literacy - in dance and other art forms - for young people before their teens and also to cultivate a future audience for both Random's adult work and contemporary dance in general.

Random's first children's project, entitled digit01 was funded by Arts Council England, developed throughout autumn 2000 and created and toured in spring 2001. Research was carried out with venues and primary school teachers prior to the project to develop a model that had a tangible value to the participating organisations and to research logistical points such as time of performances, cost of tickets, length of workshops, targeted age group and possible curriculum links.

From this research a three-tiered project model was developed that consisted of a 35 minute performance by six professional dancers in small to middle scale venues followed by a post show question and answer session, workshops in schools and a supporting website. The workshop sessions were taught by the dancers and provided an introduction and understanding of the themes in the live performance through practical dance activity. The website provided background information on the company and the piece and acted as a resource for teachers. Links with the Key Stage 3 ICT National Curriculum were developed and there were message boards to encourage communication and feedback between participating schools. As this was a pilot project we felt it was important to offer venues a low cost and therefore low risk package which consisted of the performance, a post show question and answer session and six two-hour workshops to offer to schools. This also ensured that schools were offered an affordable deal whereby if they bought thirty tickets for the show they could have a free workshop that in turn gave the venues a guaranteed audience.

Digit01 reflected Random's artistic preoccupation with the interconnected relationship between new media and dance. Wayne worked with the same artistic team as on our other touring works to create a virtual world based on themes and characters from Lewis Caroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass, and used these to explore concepts of the internet and virtual reality. Dance vocabulary, simultaneous image, film and animation provided non-linear keys to a journey throughout the performance.

Digit01 was highly successful both as a dance work and a project model, with the mix of dance and technology striking a chord with the young audiences. The workshops were successful in creating an audience for the work and also creating an informed audience with insight into the themes and ways of working of the company. The dancers performing the work were those teaching the workshops and this meant that participating children felt a real connection with them. During performances it was not unusual to hear gasps from the audience as the dancer who had been in their school the day before appeared live or virtually on stage.

In 2003 the children's project was developed further with the creation of Alpha, a piece for the same age group that was driven by themes of species, originality and the advancement of technology and its repercussions (positive and negative) on the natural world. Alpha, which is currently touring, was produced in association with the WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) who worked with Wayne McGregor to source and research themes for the work and provide a factual basis for the concepts explored in the piece. The partnership also provided a valuable profiling opportunity for both organisations with Alpha being featured in the WWF teacher's newsletters and on their learning website and the WWF logo appearing on all the Alpha publicity materials. An interesting point of commonality with the WWF was that they shared Random's aim of going beyond the 'educating' of young people about issues through dance to providing an aesthetic framework which facilitates discussion about the issues, encourages a navigated journey through their own understanding and promotes individual decision making.

Using the evaluation and experiences gained from the digit01 tours we improved the project model for Alpha. We had found that the digit01 website had not been used as extensively as we had hoped and wanted to find a way to resolve this. Teachers had fed back that although they liked the digit01 site and felt it could be useful there was not spare time within the curriculum to spend any school hours looking at it. We decided to put more emphasis on developing the Alpha website as an educational tool and resource, and were lucky enough to have funding to bring on board a curriculum consultant who wrote Key Stage 2 lesson plans for art, literacy, science, geography and ICT that linked to the themes of Alpha. It was hoped that if the resources can fit into the curriculum this will give the project a more tangible value to teachers and encourage more usage of the website that is an integral part of the project.

We also decided to refine our post show question and answer sessions. Throughout the digit01 tour dancers found they were being asked the same questions which were mainly about their personal lives, how long they had been dancing, what made them want to dance and often, how much they got paid! With Alpha as a more issue based work we wanted to encourage questions from the audience about what they had just seen and what it meant to them. Wayne worked with the dancers to formulate questions they could ask the audience that would facilitate a discussion about the issues in the piece and encourage them to explore their own understanding and promote individual decision-making.

We hope that Random's children's work has and will continue to challenge people's notions of what dance and theatre for this age group can be. Non literal, abstract dance for young people is clearly a fresh concept for promoters, educationalists and children alike but we hope that by presenting the work in a palatable way with exciting technological environments, evocative sound worlds and accessible yet demanding physical components, young audiences can experience contemporary dance in a fresh way. Only then can we hope to develop a new audience for dance who are critical thinkers, able to navigate their way through abstract performances, constructing their own narrative and growing up to be an intelligent future audience for dance.

Jasmine Fitter is education officer for Random Dance, email jasmine@randomdance.org or www.randomdance.org Visit the Alpha website at www.alphadance.org

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Animated: Summer 2003