On Monday 2nd February we were excited to welcome the O’Driscoll Collective, led by Artistic Director Jamaal O’Driscoll, to Stage Left for our DYT evening. This session kicked off a residential week for the breakdancing collective in Paignton, supported by Villages in Action, the Rural Touring Dance Initiative, and Doorstep Arts.
Members of both DYT Training and DYT Rep were joined by members of DAS Seniors, and though many of the participants were feeling somewhat anxious about learning breakdancing moves, Jamaal soon put them at ease, and four hours of fun and co-creativity were had!
After some fun warm up games to loosen us up, the group watched a short sharing by the collective’s dancers to get a taste for the show they’re in the process of devising.
We were then split into three groups to work on some mini scenes inspired by their site specific work (from the seats of a Ford Fiesta), a family portrait concept, and to learn some of the basic break moves!
These elements were shared back at the end of each rotation and all groups had a go at all of them.
In the second half of the session, after another warm up game, we filmed some short clips with the company, and they helped us to devise our own ‘family portrait’ scene
Visiting artists are an important element of Doorstep Arts’ work with young people, as experiencing a variety of techniques and artistic approaches can be key to developing an understanding of their own style.
A huge thanks to Jamaal, Dan, Liana, and Halden – all of whom made the group feel comfortable to experiment, and gave us a very fun evening of something a little bit different!
