Siobhan Davies Dance has a varied education and learning programme. Designed to nurture contemporary dance as an art form and provide people from a wide age range and a variety of backgrounds the opportunity to experience explorative projects and offer an inspiring and creative approach to learning.
Artist Bank 2009 is Siobhan Davies Dance’s new professional development project for artists exploring collaboration and choreography with primary schools, supported by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. Using the model of innovative dance delivery and collaboration taken from Primary Bank, the project will demonstrate how creative tools such as observation, exploration and discussion can be used to produce and deliver dance and how this can support other areas of the primary curriculum.
Primary Bank is the creative project designed for Primary Schools, drawing upon the creative method and choreographic process of Artistic Director Siobhan Davies which is driven by a process of intelligent questioning and enquiry. The first project was developed with Siobhan Davies working with the neighbouring primary school, Charlotte Sharman School. Pupils were encouraged to explore their local environment and worked with different art forms such as sculpture, architecture, design, music and photography as ways to express and create dance.
Following on from the success of the Primary Bank project, Siobhan Davies Dance was approached by Creative Partnerships to run a six week dance project in two Southwark primary schools in summer 2008. The Company is continuing to develop their creative projects in primary schools which includes the Elephant & Castle Regeneration Project that was delivered during summer 2009. This dance and visual art project was funded by Southwark Council and gave participants from two Southwark primary schools the opportunity to explore the changes taking place in their local area and respond through dance and drawing.
Siobhan Davies Dance’s Youth Programme was initiated with the Flash Jam project supported by Some Other Way Forward, SOWF. Further initiatives are being planned to provide young people with the space to set up projects and create their own dance work. In the summer 2008 SDD worked with BBC Blast to choreograph a performance piece for young people in the Serpentine Gallery’s pavilion 2008, designed by Frank Gehry.
Professional Development has always been an important aspect of the Company's work addressing the needs of professional dancers and choreographers. We offer a number of professional development opportunities: Jerwood Bank Project, Professional Dance Residencies and more recently the JADE Fellowship.
Workshops, Residencies and Courses include residencies, as well as workshops to support the A Level and GCSE set works Bird Song and Wyoming in secondary and further education schools and colleges.
For more information or to find out how you can get involved contact Rachel Attfield, Creative Projects Manager on RachelA@siobhandavies.com or phone 020 7091 9650.
