Scottish Opera For All (SOFA), the Education and Outreach Unit of Scottish Opera, has presented consistently high quality performances by children and young people as a culmination of its annual summer schools, says Fiona Sinclair.
Running over one week of rehearsal and workshops, around 300 children and young people work through a prepared pack of songs and lines to present the finished performances in Glasgow?s Theatre Royal or the Edinburgh Festival Theatre.
Recent evaluations have shown that the children and young people taking part greatly value the opportunity to learn more about the arts, socialise with new people, and perform in full customised costumes with live musical accompaniment and full technical back-up on a ?real? stage. These evaluations have also highlighted a need by those taking part in the summer schools to have more time to work on the production and be involved more deeply in the different arts components offered as part of the summer schools experience, for example, music, drama, visual arts and dance.
By reflecting and acting on these evaluations, SOFA has adapted its tried and tested summer school format. Children and young people will be more actively involved in the development and direction of the final performance piece and will enjoy a longer process of involvement with SOFA?s performers and arts specialists. Participants will develop a response to a creative stimulus and the expectation will be as much about self-expression as a polished final performance. This reflects the ethos in practice behind SOFA?s very popular weekly Expressive Arts classes, which run for children and young people from the age of three years.
The natural implication of all this is a development and extension of the role of the director of the summer school, which will become catalytic rather than directorial.
SOFA hopes in this way to challenge any perceptions of opera as inaccessible and exclusive and aims to encourage a sense of ownership of the performance piece and of the art form itself as a result. Given that opera?s potential for challenging traditional interpretations of well known tales is already established, SOFA is making the most of its opportunity to enable young people and children to experience this first hand.
And if this year?s participants believe opera can only be performed in a proscenium arch theatre, they can think again. The final production piece will be performed in a non-traditional space.
Fiona Sinclair is Press and Marketing Officer of Scottish Opera For All. t: 0141 332 9559; f: 0141 332 9124; e: rachael.swanick@scottishopera.org.uk