Although it’s my first special needs workshop, it’s my 3rd workshop working with Pyn from Dramask (who’s also behind the interactive performance, and community workshop side of our Mr Elephant events). In our last two workshops i’ve been bringing my music technology side in to provide the soundtrack in partnership with the Pyn’s drama side, and its been a great combination so far.

This however, was a new exploration for both of us and despite a good deal of planning and creative meetings, we weren’t sure how the two would work in this environment. Suffice to say though all thoughts were put to rest as soon as the session started, with all participants seeming fully engaged til the end, and not only delivering the objectives we hoped, but also furthering social skills in ways we didnt expect.

We began with a couple pf icebreakers, first a drama game led by Pyn, and then a music game led by me. The music game also doubled up as a way to introduce the music equipment,  and to get people comfortable with using it and speaking on the microphone.

I also recently bought a novation launchpad in order to make using ableton lite a lot easier for the group. I’m thinking of investing in another one as it would be nice to have multiple users so they can work together, as opposed to taking it in turns. I’d love to upgrade ableton too as its a great bit of software for production, performance, and there’s a host of ways i could further integrate the features in workshops, but its going to be a good while before i have enough money i think.

Next up we began to look at creating the 1st of 3 scenes which would provide the starting point to our film (which is going to be shot by another elephant resident Mr Jack Brabant) and which also gave us the opportunity to look at ways we can use sound and drama to bring the scenes to life.

The 2nd scene was where the plots started to get really interesting, with some strong performances and great improvisation.

What we found was not only did the group each bring their own thing to the scenes in ways we didnt imagine, but also that their personal responses to the scenarios we set, provided more storyline for the plot of the short film.

It was also great to see the dynamic of the group and how they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses and backed each other up where they could.

On that note, big shouts must also go out to the support workers who both did a superb job of keeping the group moving forward. It seems a large part of workshops in community settings is not just delivering a great workshop, but also having great support staff. This is best pic we have largely because both support workers were also capturing most of the footage.

Whilst Pyn was expertly leading the drama side, i was leading the music side with participants taking it in turns to trigger and play various sounds. These ranged from using incidental music and sound efx through to playing actual instruments and rhythms to express the parts, all triggered via the launchpad, remote sl, and ableton lite. The learning curve throughout the 2 hour session seemed well within each participant’s ability and paved the way nicely for some music creation next time.

At the end of the session we finished with an evaluation. It’s a great technique, whereby you draw a bullseye with 2 surrounding circles and invite all participants to put an x on the board. The more they enjoyed the session the closer to the bulls eye they put their cross.

Thankfully everyone seemed to really enjoy the session, and participants also gave some useful feedback for our next session.

It’s going to be a couple of months before we recommence as there are a couple of meetings and religious holidays, then its xmas, so we will have to wait a while before our next session, but both of us are well excited and looking forward to where we can take it.

A great group of people and i for one am feeling pretty lucky to be working in such good company.

Fingers crossed for next wednesday.

For legal reasons the picture has to be blurred, but it was all too inspiring not to blog about. I know how hard they’ve worked, and i was privileged to be there to see the final performance go sooo well..Big things ahead for Dramask and Bridge Arts & Music me thinks!

There were two tables surrounded by the publicity of Pyn’s own masks, and various community and educational workshops she’s done over the last 12 years. One table was were you could learn, assist or have a mask made on your head, made with gum strip and tissue paper. You can then take it home, or decorate it on the other table, which consisted of lots of mask decorating materials similar to that at our first mr elephant events. There were also lots of card masks for those that wanted to decorate them, including mr elephant masks, when we ran out of the first batch. I mainly manned the second table, helping out with the first where required.

What i noticed about the second table, which is something that i noticed at Mr Elephant events, are that people sitting round a table doing simple craft stuff allows an easy way to talk to each other, regardless of age, background, or level of confidence. I met and spoke to people from all over the world and from all ages and background in my few hours in the symphony hall, and it cemented by belief that bringing this into our mr elephant events has and is, a great way of encouraging interaction within communities. Though it something that sounds too simple to be true, the nature of decorating a mask seems to a huge demograph, from young kids, old ladies, arty people, chavs, and everyone in between, and now that i’ve seen that first hand in a club, a pub, and now the symphony hall, i have great expectations for some of our other plans

What Dramask do is really important stuff, not just for educational and creative development, but also for the social and cultural benefits. Pyn late to show a couple of ladies from india how to make their own mask, so that they could go home and make them for/on the rest of the family. We were still working when everyone else had packed up and gone home, and while it was only half an hour extra or so, the reaction from the final small child that had be waiting to do one, was really heart warming.

After that it was a short break at home, before heading off to a dj booking for Subvert, playing after The Heels. If you not heard them, The Heels are a great band live, and this was their last free one, before going on tour with The Beat. Aside from my set (which consisted of Mr Elephant type stuff and ended with a some big breaks), we also got to enjoy the hilarious Dik Guru, and outside Christie was playing some choice reggae.

After that i went home to bed and slept for about 18 hours!