Bournemouth Theatre in Education, wave- arts education agency and DepARTure Arts present the

7th Annual Dorset Drama Conference

Drama - Inspiring Hearts, Engaging Minds

Monday 6th October 2008 @ Lighthouse, Poole

MOTIVATIONAL TALKS, EXCITING LIVE PERFORMANCE, PRACTICAL CREATIVE WORKSHOPS, SHARED EXPERIENCES AND IDEAS, SPECIALIST BOOKSTALL AND THEATRE EXHIBITIONS.

Key note - The Power of Drama’ Beverley Naidoo, well known children’s author (Journey to J’burg’, Smartie Children’s Books Prize winner)

Plus a short performance by REMIX Youth Theatre, London Drama Bookstall and buffet!

Poster Display – we welcome contributions from any teacher/s interested in bringing a display of work in progress or successfully completed relevant to the conference themes. These could be visual and/or audio-visual and will be viewed by delegates during breaks.  Please contact Tony Horitz or Sharon Muiruri, 01202 452719/18 if you are interested.

Booking deadline is 8th September '08. Please complete and return this booking form to Bournemouth TiE.

For more information about this conference see this flyer, or contact: Bournemouth TiE, tel: 01202 452720, fax: 01202 452721, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

KEY NOTE & WORKSHOPS

Key Note
 “A Shared Experience - Critical Literacy & the Power of Drama” - Beverley Naidoo 

Beverley's key note will reveal the powerful role that active learning can have in shaping and enriching young people’s stories.  Drama can create a strong sense of individual and social fulfilment by encouraging young people to take risks and find their own voice.  Beverley will reflect on her own experience of building narratives through drama workshops in England, South Africa and Nigeria – a creative process that not only informed her own research but shaped the emerging novels and plays.

Workshops
(Each workshop will last 90 minutes. Choose 2 - 1 for am and one for pm)

PRIMARY*
The Creative Classroom - Adam Annand (Workshop A & C am & pm)
Exploring successful ways of placing drama at the heart of the whole curriculum – based on findings from a year long project in London run by Half Moon Young People’s Theatre.

Drama – Transformation and Critical Literacy - Beverley Naidoo (Workshop B am only)
Developing ideas from her key note on risk-taking and story building through practical activities.

Hopes, Fears and Burden Catchers - Tony Horitz (Workshop D pm only)
Developing young people’s Emotional Literacy through drama and poetry.  Participants will be led through a straightforward process that moves from personal exploration through drama and physical theatre to poetry writing and performance. As trialled in the recent Cultural Hub finale with year 4s!

SECONDARY*
The ActionTrack Approach  - Nick Brace (Workshop E am only)
Practical workshop - exercises and techniques to stimulate the imagination and creativity in the classroom - a wealth of new skills for your drama teaching tool kit - including writing, storytelling, rhythm, trust exercises and devising games.

The Power of the Ancients - Motivating Disaffected Students with Classic Theatre - Sharon Muiruri (Workshop F am)
The timeless emotional truths of the classic repertoire can enable young people to find new meanings and make powerful connections with their own lives. Drawing on recent successful Drama work with EBD students, involving Sharon will lead participants through selected extracts from Ancient Greek Theatre and Shakespeare, suitable for use in their own classroom practice.
 
Exploring Verbatim Theatre - Rosie Russell (Workshop G pm only)
Rosie will introduce participants to this exciting contemporary theatre form, which involves using personal testimony to build documentary dramas. Participants will experiment with techniques to access stories as a form of devising and exploring issues with reference to contemporary texts including The Permanent Way by David Hare and Talking to Terrorists by Robin Soans, as examples of theatre empowering individuals, engaging with politics and a tool for change. The workshop will be geared to practitioners teaching drama at KS 4 and above.

 “But the bad thing that happened to you changed my life” Exploring challenging issues through drama -   Lyn Gaudreau and Angela Herrera.  (Workshop H pm only)
The thought-provoking and moving text “Cloudbusting” (by Malorie Blackman) will be the stimulus for this workshop.  We will use a variety of strategies to explore the theme of bullying – in particular, cyber bullying – and explore how forum theatre provides a powerful and creative vehicle leading to a devised piece. This workshop will be suitable for colleagues from upper primary/secondary phases.

BIOGRAPHIES OF WORKSHOP LEADERS

Adam Annand (Workshop A & C) has worked extensively as an actor/teacher with young people’s theatre companies in London, including Greenwich YPT, and the Half Moon YPT, where he was Associate Director.  He was recently appointed as Associate Director for Creative Learning at the well known London Bubble Theatre Company. Adam has just published an extensive report on a year’s residency in schools running the Creative Classroom Project.

Nick Brace (Workshop E) is the Artistic Director of Action Track Theatre.
In Schools, Colleges, Youth Clubs and with Arts organisations and social service providers across the country and beyond, Actiontrack have built a reputation for exciting, entertaining and innovative work in the participatory arts.  With over 25 years experience of inspiring young people, founder Nick Brace is an accomplished musician, writer and performer, knowledge and skills he shares with young people to create show builds, celebrations (e.g. Abolition of Slavery), and produce partner projects involving pyramid schools.

Lyn Gaudreau (Workshop H) is Inspector for English, Dorset Local Authority. Lyn taught English, Drama and Media Studies for many years in Dorset and Bournemouth schools and has also been an Assistant Head (i/c inclusion). She was one of the first English teachers to do the RSA Educational Drama course and she regularly runs drama workshops for teachers, educators and TAs. 

Angela Herrera (Workshop H) has worked as a primary teacher, leading in English and Drama in a variety of schools.  Following a year as an AST for Primary English she is now a Primary Consultant for Dorset Local Authority, leading in all aspects of Primary English and Drama for the county.

Tony Horitz (Workshop D) is co-director of Bournemouth Theatre in Education, part of Bournemouth Borough’s Council’s Children’s Services. He’s been involved in community theatre and drama education in Dorset since 1975. Over the last few years he has been involved in several projects exploring drama’s potential to support emotional literacy work in primary schools, from Early Years upwards.  He took a break this year and travelled to Mexico to write and direct a piece of community theatre with undergraduate science students.

Sharon Muiruri (Workshop F) is the other co-director of Bournemouth Theatre in Education She specializes in using drama in social inclusion, developing the Vita Nova project with adults in recovery and has recently developed the Bournemouth Drama Academy for young people who are either at risk of exclusion or out of mainstream education. She is on the Arts council’s Advisory Team for Social Inclusion and successfully completed an M Phil with Exeter University on the topic earlier this year.

Beverley Naidoo (Key Note & Workshop B) is a well known, Award-Winning, Bournemouth based children’s author, and whose ‘Journey to Joburg ’and‘ No Turning Back are widely used in classrooms all over the world, and have been translated to many languages.  Prior to this she was a teacher and Advisory teacher in Dorset for many years, supporting schools with English and multi cultural work across the curriculum. Beverley’s first play ‘The Play Ground’, focused on the sensitive transition in South Africa towards multi-cultural schooling, was recently performed by Polka Theatre, Wimbledon.

Bournemouth Theatre in Education (BTiE) is Bournemouth Borough Council’s long-standing team of advisory drama teachers / theatre directors work with all ages and abilities in school and community contexts. BTiE run courses and workshops for teachers, young people and adults in and out of schools. They are now particularly known for their work on social inclusion, using drama with disaffected young people and  for their unique disability theatre project Double Act (formerly The Next Stage). Tel. 021202 452720 for details.

DepARTure Arts is Dorset County Council’s Arts in Education Partnership for Dorset Schools, working with schools and artists together to enhance the lives of children and young people through the curriculum and beyond.  A source of information, advice and guidance on the arts for schools and artists, DepARTure brokers partnerships, delivers training, promotes Arts Award and Artsmark as well as co-ordinating projects with all stages of the curriculum from Early Years, through KS1, 2, 3 & 4 inside and outside the classroom including drama therapy work with Looked After Children.

wave is the arts education agency for Bournemouth and Poole, for more information click here