Artist Bank 2009/10 was a project for artists working in primary schools building on the success of Primary Bank. The project explored choreography and collaboration and provided opportunities to discover how dance artists, visual artists and teachers can find ways to communicate and work together to benefit their individual professional practices.
Two dance artists, Catherine Bennett and Pari Naderi, and two visual artists, Lucy Cash and Ruth Gibson, worked in partnership with class teachers from four schools in Lambeth and Southwark:
“Movement, out of all art forms, is probably the least tangible for children to understand how it can be developed and how it can be taken to a different level. Collaborating with a visual artist has helped the children to understand more complex movement ideas.” Catherine Bennett
Over 260 Key Stage 2 children and their teachers took part in weekly movement and visual art sessions with the artists to explore a variety of choreographic ideas and different approaches to creativity. As part of the project they visited the Natural History Museum and Tate Modern to look at some of these ideas from a new perspective.
“It surprised me because I never knew dancing had so much to it.” Tania, Alfred Salter
Over, Under, Through
As part of Big Dance 2010 all of the participating children took part in a site specific performance, Over, Under, Through at Borough Market in central London giving family and friends the opportunity to see some of the choreographic ideas the artists and children explored together. They shared the movement they had created with the audience showing a real ownership and responsibility for what they had created.
Read a review of Over, Under, Through
Artist Bank Exchange
The exchange site was a way for the four schools to share their ideas through the project.
+View site
Further Information
For more information on Artist Bank please contact Rachel Attfield on rachela@siobhandavies.com.
Artist Bank is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation with additional support from the Newcomen Collett Foundation.
