musica viva - music to inspire

Earlier this year I worked with Karen Kyriakou from musica viva through the 'musician in the classroom program' while working as the Performing Arts Coordinator at Richmond West Primary School, Melbourne.

At Richmond West there are many children that can benefit greatly from a program such as this especially those living in the neighboring housing commission blocks.

I learnt a great deal from Karen about how to make music more accessible for kids especially through body and instrumental percussion. For our grade 3/4 classes the goal was for the children to compose their own percussion piece, I would then record these pieces and use them as the basis for two online videos. Our grade 6 class had the same goal in addition to composing their graduation song with the help of Karen's expertise in composition.

I was inspired to hear of Karen's past teaching experiences, delivering inclusive music programs for children from other lower socioeconomic areas in Melbourne as well children with special needs.

See below two animations I produced based on the percussion pieces the children created with Karen.



Year 5 Percussion Music Video - Musica Viva 2011 from Richmond West PS on Vimeo.


Year 6 Percussion Music Video - Musica Viva from Richmond West PS on Vimeo.

Theatre of the Oppressed - Participatory Theatre

Theatre of the Oppressed was devised by the Brazilian artist and activist Augusto Boal. Boal believed that theatre could be used as a powerful tool for social change. This series of participatory theatre techniques involves spectators becoming part of the performance hence the term "spect-actors".
As stated on the http://www.theatreoftheoppressed.org/ website Theatre of the Oppressed or
TO for short is "of, about, by and for the Oppressed".

Check out these useful websites

http://www.thirdwaytheatre.org/
http://www.makhampom.net/
http://www.cardboardcitizens.org.uk/
http://www.actout.com.au/
http://actout.com.au/blog/
http://www.ptoweb.org/
http://www.toplab.org/

The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum

I stumbled upon this publication this morning. Might be worth a look.
http://ijz.cgpublisher.com/