Entries tagged 'dance'

Dancing through a unique summer with West End dancers

By Tony Attwood, posted 17th April 2012 at 9:44AM | Comments

To help celebrate the Diamond Jubilee and Olympics, our team of West End dancers will come to your school and work with your pupils using our topical dance workshops inspired by these unique events.

We use a range of techniques and music to ensure that every child will be able to make a valuable contribution to these sessions.  Teachers regularly tell us that they are surprised that every single child engaged in their workshop.

Two workshops are available for classes from Reception to Year 6:

Best of British celebrates the Jubilee and explores what it is to be British.  We invite the children to contribute ideas to each session and create a dance to a soundtrack of great classic and...

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Can dance improve literacy?

West End dancers and choreographers in your school

By Tony Attwood, posted 12th March 2012 at 10:36AM | Comments

Getting reluctant readers involved in literacy can be a struggle on occasion. However by getting children involved in dance and encouraging them to use their imaginations, the level of engagement and motivation can increase significantly.

This is the basis for our dance workshop, “Bringing Books to Life”, based on Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.

We do this by bringing a dancer and choreographer from one of London's West End theatres (with experience in working with children) into schools in the UK to work with pupils in class by class workshops.

The day starts with a 30 minute assembly – an introduction to dance in which we demonstrate how movement can be used to tell...

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The popularity of dance

Among children, the popularity of dance as an activity is exceeded only by the popularity of football.

By Tony Attwood, posted 01st March 2012 at 9:52AM | Comments

According to the report “Dance in and Beyond Schools,” after football dance is the most popular physical activity among young people.

The awareness of just how interested young people are in dance was enhanced by the publication of the “Dance Review” by Tony Hall, Executive Director of the Royal Opera House.

And it was in response to this that the government of the day said, “We want every young person to have access to the highest quality dance teaching at every stage of their development.”

Of course, since then we have had a change of government, but the desire of children to dance has not changed – indeed if anything it seems to get greater, year by year.

Dance is unique. The...

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Success without effort

By Tony Attwood, posted 03rd October 2011 at 2:37PM | Comments

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It has been suggested many times in recent years that the current generation of school children has a particular problem that has never been seen before.

In the past it has been argued, children have recognised that success generally comes as a result of hard work and effort.   That doesn’t mean that all children then go on and work hard or put in the effort, but it does mean they don’t expect things to happen just because they want things to happen.

But with the current generation – the generation that has grown up with X Factor as part of the establishment - this has changed.  There seems to be a belief that if one wants something enough, it will happen.

Children can even be heard...

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Getting Boys to Dance

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 03rd August 2011 at 10:51AM | Comments

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A new choreographer working with us was delighted by feedback from teachers just before the end of term. The teachers had expected some of the older boys participating in the dance workshop would be unwilling to engage with the process.

However on this occasion Gary used football to engage with the boys and encourage them to use movements developed from the motion of kicking a football as part of their choreography.

In his own words “The key to getting children who would not usually dance to take part is all in the approach. By allowing them to create and devise movement from their own hobbies and interests and then combining that with a little set choreography, I was able to create...

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Storytelling through Dance

By Nigel Godfrey, posted 27th April 2011 at 4:27PM | Comments

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Musical theatre uses dance and movement to tell and reinforce stories and our our West End dancers and choreographers have strong experience in this area.

Children involved in storytelling dance can gain confidence in interpreting a text, in movement skills and in performing.  The nature of storytelling though dance is non competitive, so every pupil is able to contribute fully to a workshop.

We have noticed demand from schools for a more detailed exploration of texts than time allows in our musical theatre format and from this term will be offering dance workshops to schools, all of which will focus on dance as a storytelling tool.

Each visit to a school can incorporate a short...

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