PIER one for community special schools by Adam Bushell
As lockdown restrictions have started to lift and the sun has come out, PIER one has managed to start delivering projects again.
In the Spring term, we ran a very successful project at the Lindfield School in Eastbourne. Although it was quite a small project in itself, it was significant for two important reasons. Firstly, it was a hybrid (ie live and Zoom) project, and secondly it was the first project PIER one have run without any external mentors or artistic directors.
Hybrid projects may not be new in a global sense, it was the first time any of the PIER one tutors had worked that way – let alone planned a project around it. We were working with one class at Lindfield School, but because of Covid restrictions the tutors couldn’t visit the school in person. So the tutors all appeared on the interactive whiteboard via Zoom, while the students were in their usual classroom with their class teacher and TA. One student also came to some of the sessions via Zoom.
It was a strangely unbalanced way of working – the four tutors had a large presence in the classroom as our faces were in close-up on the interactive whiteboard, while we sometimes struggled to see the students in a long-distance shot on our computer monitors. But by speaking to individuals, using their names and seeking feedback, we managed to ensure that there was a sense of inclusion & involvement. And the process was really helped along by the presence in class of a brilliant class-teacher and TA.
The project was called Winter Into Spring, and we collectively wrote a short piece of music to reflect the movement of seasons. It was very textural & atmospheric – partly a logistic decision, as it alllowed us to work around the Zoom time-lag more easily than a tightly structured, beat-driven piece. As well as working in the classroom with the whole group, all the students were offered 1-to-1 Zoom sessions with a PIER one tutor to develop ideas to feed into the piece. In the end, only half the class took up the offer, but those students clearly gained a lot from them – they showed a real sense of pride & ownership in their contributions to the group piece.
As mentioned, this was the first time that PIER one have run a project without external mentors. It is also the first time that we have run without a single artistic director, having decided instead to work in a fully collaborative way. All the planning, from early brainstorming to final details were decided collectively, and the delivery was equally shared between all tutors. And it was a pleasure to see how well and how easily it worked: the training and mentoring we have received in the last couple of years has been excellent, and has helped us share the vision of what we’re trying to achieve. We’ve also got a really good, complementary (and sometimes complimentary) group of tutors.
Overall, we had a very positive response and a great welcome from the class - lots of smiles & thumbs up after our final performance to parents (via Zoom). The class teacher, TA and parents were also very positive: it was ‘a great experience’, ‘marvellous’, and they ‘loved that they had the opportunity for one-to-one sessions’.
Our planning now is focussed on starting the regular ensemble in September. This will be a Saturday morning activity at ESM’s music-centre in Eastbourne. We are responding to feedback we’ve had about the difficulties of getting to out-of-school activities, and are working to make it as accessible as possible: we’re planning site visits before the course starts to help young people feel comfortable in that space, and are looking into ways we could help with transport. And we’ve started the process of inviting young people to join and have already got a small but significant number of interested players.
So watch this space!