OUTREACH PROGRAMME

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.

Read Feedback from the Outreach Programme

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