Emma Mordue

Tag: schools

  • Embrace The New Things

    One thing I absolutely love is doing new things, and this past week has had two new sessions added.

    The first was for Discover And Play Club who offer holiday sessions in schools across Ipswich. I had been recommended by a school I worked at earlier in the year, and I ran two Entertain Like A Tudor sessions for them. As always these were filled with lots of music and laughter, dancing and juggling together. The wonderful feeling when a child is convinced they can’t join in at all with juggling, and we find a path together and before you know it they are trying to balance balls on all different bits of their body and call gleefully across the room that they walked like that!

    The second was for Cambridgeshire Holiday Orchestra where for the first time, assisted by Amy, I ran a session for mixed ability and mixed instruments incorporating some playing. So we learned a dance and sang a catch (or round) and learned a tune by ear using a drone as a nice safe fall back point and building up the tune. We answered lots of questions about Tudors and instruments and music and dance and went away thinking an hour wasn’t long enough! We managed to pack a lot in.

    Emma and Amy entertain the students with the bagpipes

  • Easter Holidays sessions

    It is so lovely to get an email saying a teacher has recommended you. Following on from my schools sessions in January, I’m now going to be back at Castle Hill Junior school with Discover And Play Club, as part of their Easter Holiday Club offering.

    Also in the Easter Holidays I’ll be leading a session alongside Cambridge Waits band mate Amy Keller at Cambridge Holiday Orchestra which should be fun too! A very different kind of session than those I usually do, so I’m looking forwards to adapting for some young musicians.

  • Juggling schools for Wolsey

    January saw me booked to see about 400 primary school children across 3 different Ipswich schools. Organised and funded by the Wolsey 550 project. I had created a new workshop titled “Entertain Like A Tudor” where in about an hour, we imagined we were travelling entertainers and had a go at learning some of the skills required. This included the usual music and dance, but for the first time I added whole class juggling.

    Juggling balls in a box decorated with medieval hares

    With a rough idea in my head of how to approach this to best empower success, I dedicated the final 20mins of the session to juggling.

    “They loved the juggling particularly – they said it was fun and they loved to have a go”

    I learned so much from these first outings, and it went so much better than I thought it would. The great thing about juggling is it is easy to differentiate between different abilities. All achievements are huge achievements to be celebrated. Dropping balls is funny, it’s ok to laugh at ourselves. We ended each session with a great balancing procession around the room headed up with me playing music and finishing by tipping the balls back into their box. Absolute joy all round.

    I love the transaction that happens when you give yourself up to play, and the room comes with you. We all give each other so much and I leave with more than I arrived with. Hopefully the participants all feel the same.

    Castle Hill Juniors

    If you’d like to book juggling for your school or group get in touch. It is suitable for any age, any physical ability. It isn’t just about juggling three balls – it teaches balance and coordination, but also resilience, perseverance, light heartedness, group support, confidence, body awareness and so much more.

  • News report from huge parade

    As part of the Wolsey 550 project in Ipswich I ran workshops in local primary schools, teaching tudor music and dance, which we took to the streets of Ipswich as a huge parade to celebrate the end of the first phase of the project. Nearly 350 primary school children joined me for what might be the biggest Pavan (a tudor era processional dance) Ipswich has ever seen. Alongside songs with Tracey Raynor from Suffolk Music Hub, and both The New Cambridge Waits and The Colchester Waits, it was a spectacular event, all coming together on the Cornhill to watch a performance from another school facilitated by local performance company Gecko, before all singing together at the end. This news report gives a flavour of the project and the event.