At the Orff Institute, we looked at ways through which to integrate different disciplines within the arts. This movement sequence was created for an activity led by Barbara Haselbach during our module Integrating the Arts. The movement sequence is accompanied by my voice and has three main movements which move from a high level to floor level. After completing the movement sequence, we had the task of drawing what we experienced in movement. The photographs above are a few ideas that I have been pondering, in relation to how to visually depict my movements. Thinking about the shape of my movements, the sequence begins with my hands moving in a circular, smooth flow before moving vertically in a parallel fashion in a short, detached up and down movement. The final movement is a backwards slide into sitting. I have tried to incorporate the circular and parallel qualities in each small installation and the backwards slide as something that tapers out or in horizontally. I am really interested to see how children would visualize a movement sequence.
In the short clip above, I have been playing with these ideas musically. I think that it works really well to accompany a movement sequence with the voice because there is immediate musical material to explore. For the circular hand movements, my voice accompanies with an ascending and then descending glissando. For the short hand movements, I imitate with detached clicks. The backwards slide has no pitch but the ‘sshh’ sound has a small diminuendo. I wanted to use the chime bars because these are instruments that many children can have access to. The ascending, descending arpeggio followed by the repeated cluster is how I thought about interpreting the first two movements of the sequence. The descending pattern on the chimes reminded me of the sweeping backwards movement. I also added some little improvisation sections to my D Dorian melody.
Really looking forward to trying similar activities which allow for the integration of the arts with Primary School children after the summer holidays.
carolinemccluskey 