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As part of the Diploma in
Professional Dance offered by NBS, the Outreach
Programme is an important element of the
student's training. The Programme is part
of the second academic year subjects within
the Contextual Studies Module. It is intended
to provide students with transferable skills.
Students keep notes on the progress of each
project and give regular feedback to their
tutor. The Outreach Programme will put NBS
students in direct contact with primary
school children by visiting schools, with
a view to developing joint arts projects.
NBS students assume distinct roles within
their groups, which encourage them to take
responsibilities and develop their communication,
organisational and leadership skills. Students
are encouraged to examine their work constantly
during the development of the project, indeed
the process of self-reflection is fundamental
to the learning outcomes, which ultimately
leads to enhanced creativity in the school
children. These projects always have a theme
upon which the dance students work intensely,
after much research. Both NBS students and
the primary school children have the opportunity
to work with orchestral musicians on the
composition of a piece of music, which is
then performed at the end of each project.
There were three main Outreach
projects involving NBS students during the
2004/05 academic year. In addition to these
main projects, NBS students were actively
involved in smaller projects by visiting
Primary Schools in Greater Manchester.
The first of these projects,
'Trains and Boats and Planes…'
was a creative arts project in collaboration
with the 'Hallé Orchestra' and 'The
Museum of Science, Industry in Manchester',
NBS's Year Two Jazz Focus and four primary
schools in Manchester. It ran from September
2004 until January 2005, culminating in
a performance, at the Bridgewater Hall in
Manchester. NBS students worked intensely
on creating a choreographed dance for Year
5 and 6 children on the given theme.
The second project, 'Stops
Away', involved NBS Year Two Classical
Focus Students, four primary schools in
Manchester, The Manchester Music Service
and the Organist of The Hallé orchestra,
Daniel Moult. The theme was the Chanticleer,
based on Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales'
and the ballet 'Rooster' by Christopher
Bruce. Again, the ballet students worked
intensely with the primary school children
on choreographed pieces, which were performed,
once more, by Year 5 and 6 children at The
Bridgewater Hall in March.
Salford Business Education
Partnership was another of our collaborators
on the Outreach Programme. Two of our third
year students had much success at a workshop
they ran with children of St. Sebastian's
RC Primary, in Salford in February, as part
of the Salford East Education Action Zone.
The third project, 'Vanishing
Docks', involved NBS Years Two
and Three and students. The dance students
worked with children of five primary schools
in Manchester. The collaboration between
NBS, Manchester Music Service, Salford Museum
and Living and Learning developed a project
based on the history of the Manchester Docks
focussing on the City's rich cultural diversity,
which has been brought about by successive
waves of immigration. The final outcome
of this project was a performance at the
RNCM theatre in June, which consisted of
dances choreographed for the school children.
This required intense input from our students
as in the previous projects.
It is anticipated that forthcoming
projects will prove to be at least as successful
as the previous ones. NBS has received excellent
feedback from all collaborating institutions
that are already planning new projects for
the next academic year in the hope of our
renewed collaboration.
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