Juilliard collaboration
This visit is part of the collaboration between Nord Anglia Education and the renowned performing arts conservatory, the Juilliard School, based in New York City. Our partnership gives teachers at La Côte International School access to an enhanced performing arts curriculum with ongoing support and professional development, alongside access to Juilliard Creative Classroom resources. Teachers, students and parents all benefit from visits by Juilliard music, drama, and dance curriculum specialists. The Juilliard approach is about building confidence and an ability to unlock self-expression along with an appreciation for what everyone brings to the process.
Speaking with our bodies
Like a magician about to reveal a secret, our Ms Careless reaches into a coloured gift bag and pulls out three objects, including a cookie. “What can you find that is similar about these things?” she asks. Suggestions abound, and the discussion arrives at the word ‘flat.’
Can the children make flat shapes with their bodies, as though their bodies are the cookie dough? What different shapes can they make? Everyone enjoys trying out different things lying on the floor in their dancing spot, then finds a place against the wall to make vertical flat shapes.
The class gather together again and a second group of treasures is pulled from the bag, this time including a croissant. After the first exercise it’s clear that the students have started to grasp the theme of the workshop. “They are all 3D shapes,” someone swiftly offers. Now the children experiment with making three dimensional shapes with their bodies, first solo and then in pairs. Continuing the theme of speaking with their bodies, the pairs swap places, with one student taking a turn as the ‘dough dancer’ while the ‘baker maker’ gives silent instruction by pointing - ‘move your foot to here’ etc. Afterward, a few pairs volunteer to show the whole class one of the shapes they made.
Creative roles
Laura Careless explains that, “It’s about making choices that are personal, deliberate, and appropriate to the task, rather than right or wrong.” And it’s about experiencing each role in the creative dance process – dancer, maker (choreographer) and audience, and respecting each of them.
LCIS’s ECA dance teacher and parent, Georgena Blair Romeu, has been onboarded onto the Juilliard Creative Classroom resources and teaches these lessons as part of the ECA courses for Primary and Secondary. She has joined the Year 2 workshop and comments afterwards that leading a dance workshop like this one, with a very mixed group of children, is very different to teaching dance to a class of students who have specifically chosen to be there. It’s much more about awareness of the body in space, getting the children recognising how they are able to express different things physically, and having them feel capable and successful.
Context
Every Juilliard dance session ends with the class watching a video of a professional dance company. After their video showing part of the work Kaash by the Akram Khan company, the children are asked to show any flat and 3D shapes they noticed the dancers making. Then they watch the same clip again, this time using two different gestures to indicate when they spot either a flat or 3D shape.
It’s clear to see how invested the children are in watching the professional dancers, and how keen they are to show that they recognise shapes being spoken in dance. Seeing this at the end of their workshop, Laura explains, is a very different experience than watching at the start, or without a workshop. They feel ‘I just did that; I can do that too.’ There is context to the professional choreography, and a strong sense of connection.
Creative value
This special Juilliard experience gave our students a unique chance to explore creativity and self-expression in a captivating and accessible way, guided by the highly experienced and talented Laura Careless. By engaging their bodies and imaginations, they discovered new ways to communicate and collaborate. Watching professional dancers at the end of the session let them see how their own movements connected to the broader world of performance, encouraging them to see the value in their own creativity.
