Following my meeting with Rob, I have been thinking about suitable warm up and cool down exercises for the workshop. I have had to be mindful that some of the participants are non-verbal and have limited mobility, therefore I have had to ensure that any ideas I put forward are inclusive.
Initially, I discovered two warm up exercises; sound painting and no smiling. Sound painting is a game in which one person is the conductor and everyone else is the orchestra. The person being the conductor controls the sound with body movements. Although this idea is good as it is musical, I am unsure of how suitable it will be for the participants. The movements used by the conductor are also set actions and I feel that if we all had to learn the actions then time would be wasted within the workshop. Please see a video of Sound Painting below.
The second option, and my personal favourite, is ‘no smiling’. One person stands in the centre of the circle. Everyone sat in the circle must try to make that person laugh one at a time. The person who makes them laugh then swaps and the game starts again. I feel this game would be fun and an easy way to break the ice. Furthermore, it is inclusive of all participants as if someone is non-verbal, they can pull funny faces to make the person in the centre laugh.
In terms of the Cool Down, Rob owns a contact juggling ball. The video below shows one of these balls in action.
The ball itself is weighted so it is therapeutic to hold. I thought that by passing this around the circle whilst focusing on meditative breathing, it would be a useful way to allow the participants to calm down and reflect. This will be useful as I aim to gather an evaluation from the Creative School students following the session. Rob suggested that I only evaluate the Creative School students due to the teachers being present and their understanding of consent.
I have emailed Rob with these ideas and am awaiting a response. Please see the email below. In the meantime, I am going to start considering themes of the main event (composition) and methods of evaluation.
Reference List
Contact Juggling | Magical Crystal Ball Illusions. (2019). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsye3zy9Um8&t=84s [Accessed 16 Feb. 2020].
Thompson, W. (2016). Soundpainting – Walter Thompson. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=341kPe1ClOw [Accessed 16 Feb. 2020].
Emily Pembridge MUS634 