Education
Continents converge in Festival 2011's education programme
The Edinburgh International Festival works with many people throughout the year through education programmes and professional development opportunities in the Hub and visits schools and colleges with outreach projects. This embracing and challenging programme of work is informed each year by the Festival programme and its principles. In 2011 the Festival's education programme has explored the art and cultures of south east Asia and India. The results of some of these workshops have been showcased at exhibitions in The Hub and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.Here are some of the highlights from the 2011 programme.
In November and December this year, celebrated Catalan dancers Cesc Gelabert and Lydia Azzopardi, visited Edinburgh for Uncommon, a residency aimed at participants over the age of 50. Held at Dance Base, Scotland's national centre for dance and our project partner, the idea was to create an eclectic, warm, flamboyant and spirited event offering those involved an opportunity to broaden practice and redefine the role of the mature professional dancer. Find out more about Gelabert here.
View a gallery of images from Uncommon here.
Listen below to what the dancers involved thought of Uncommon.
We also spoke to choreographer Cesc Gelabert about his thoughts on the project and he also told us about his love or dance and football - and how the two are inextricably linked. Listen below.
Schools Programme
Enshrined is a project for primary and secondary pupils that explores the creation and use of shrines in our everyday lives in the 21st century. In the workshops the pupils will be asked to consider what is important to them in their lives and then working with artists create their own three-dimensional shrines to be displayed in the Hub throughout the year.
View images from the Enshrined workshops here.
Listen below to what the pupils who worked on Enshrined built and what they thought of the project.
The Festival's Art of Listening workshops for primary school pupils continue throughout 2011 in The Hub where pupils explore new ways of listening to music with help from professional tenor Chris Elliott and accompanist Andrew Brown.
'The children enjoyed a different type of musical input and linked
music to their feelings. They were introduced to silence and thinking as
a form of relaxation.' Edinburgh Primary School Teacher 2009
View images from the Art of Listening workshops here.
Listen below to what the pupils involved in the Art of Listening workshops thought of the project.
For Song of the Earth, primary and secondary school pupils created their own unique textiles or art books with tapestry artist Deidre Nelson and visual artist Audrey Grant. Inspired by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the primary pupils created colourful embroideries using the ancient Bengali stitching and patchwork skill of Kantha - which is central to Festival 2011's visual art exhibition Heirlooms. The seasons and rhythms of growth and decay, conveyed by Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (Song of the Earth), were the inspiration for the secondary school pupils when they created individual hand-made pieces of artwork in the form of a small book. The pupils' work was exhibited at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh during the Festival.
View images from Song of the Earth Kantha workshops here.
Poet and writer Ken Cockburn and visual artist Louse Fraser lead A Letter to the Wind, a workshop for primary pupils exploring Himalayan prayer flags. Along the Himalayas colourful prayer flags are found. In this tradition prayers are not made to a god, but the goodwill the flags aim to promote is spread by the wind for all to receive. Through creative writing and art projects pupils made personal responses to the prayer flags.
View images from A Letter to the Wind workshops here.
Students at The Royal High School explored the work of writers from south east Asia and India in creative writing workshops with Edinburgh International Festival writer-in-residence Mary Paulson-Ellis. Over the summer, the pupils participated in a Renga, a form of collaborative Japanese poetry. The fruits of which are on show currently in the foyer of The Hub.
Nrityagram Dance EnsembleThe Nrityagram Dance Ensemble of Bangalore, brought beautiful Indian dance to Festival 2011, and shared the skills and philosophy of their art in classical workshops for pupils and young professional dancers. The Ensemble is based in India's first modern Gurkul (a residential education centre dedicated to a specialist subject) for Indian classical dancers.
Young Critics
The Festival and The Herald worked together on the Young Critics scheme. In May, four professional critics met students to talk about the art of criticism and the arts and the students' reviews were posted on the Herald website during the Festival
Read their review of One Thousand and One Nights
Read their review of Koyaanisqatsi
Read their review of the Festival dance programme
Continental Shifts
A fascinating programme of talks and public events once again took place at The Hub. Presented in association with the British Council, Continental Shifts was a series of talks and debates on Festival themes and ideas by and with Festival performers, academics and cultural commentators, including one of the world's leading authorities on Chinese history Professor Jonathan Spence, Professor of History at Yale University.
To find out more about how your school or group could become involved with the Festival's education programme, contact Sally Hobson education@eif.co.uk
Images: Rob McDougall