2013 Schools programme

Every year the Festival works with around fifteen hundred  primary and secondary school children, inspiring and challenging them through education and outreach projects which encourage a deeper understanding of the world in which we live. Our projects explore the diverse cultures, ideas  and international artists we present and give young people the opportunity too work directly with some of the world’s most accomplished and challenging performers.

Around 350 of Edinburgh’s primary and secondary school children are set to experience one of the world’s finest choreographers and bright young company in their schools during the Edinburgh International Festival this year. Benjamin Milliepied’s sparkling young dance company  LA Dance Project set to perform their unique, high octane and very stylish brand  of dance into Edinburgh schools across the city.

A further 250 primary 7 pupils will work with the Festival on the Soul Boxes project designed to explore how photography and technology help us to record our lives. Each pupil experiences a series of workshops in schools and at The Hub through April and May 2013 working on personal research and autobiographical material with photographers and artists. The project is designed to develop writing and visual art skills linking directly into the Expressive Arts: Curriculum for Excellence.

The Art of Listening returns for 2013 and runs throughout the year. The popular project brings together over 700 Primary 7 pupils with recitalists and Festival staff at The Hub in an introduction to the effect music has on our inner world and how by listening carefully you can engage and develop your imagination and a sense of self.

The Herald Young Critics scheme celebrates its 10th anniversary with an increased number of  Edinburgh secondary schools selected to meet with the newspaper’s critics and explore the art of criticism, the arts and writing. The best Festival show reviews are published in the paper.

The inaugural Edinburgh International Festival Schools Lecture will be delivered by Jean Kilbourne, internationally recognised for her groundbreaking work on the image of women in advertising and her critical studies of alcohol and tobacco advertising. The lecture will be delivered at the beginning of the new school year in August, at a secondary school, to pupils aged 15 and above from schools across the city.

Kate Valk and Andrew Schneider of New York’s The Wooster Group travel to Edinburgh before the Festival to give a summer school for young people which will explore camera work and its role in live performance. The summer schoolruns at The Hub from Thursday 1 to Monday 5 August.

In an exhibition at The Hub, The Evolution of Creative Idea, explores the collaboration between a visual artist and writer on the development of a new idea. Audrey Grant and Mary  Paulson-Ellis draw inspiration from Darwin’s Tree of Life demonstrating that all species evolve from a common ancestor, the work of Samuel Beckett exploring the human condition, the anatomy drawings of Leonardo da Vinci and the desktop drawing technique of previous EIF commissioned artist, Greg Creek (2009).The exhibition will model how the creative process evolves towards a variety of possible outcomes such as an artists book, a printed book and other visual representations, all contextualized through the journeys of an existential Jack Russell dog.