Projects

Award-Winnig: The Butterfly Workshop

Gioconda Belli's prizewinning children's book The Butterfly Workshop tells a story about the creation of animals and plants. In the insects' design workshop we meet the young designer Rodolfo. Rodolfo is dreaming of a very special being that can fly like a bird and is pretty like a flower. But the rules for creature designers are strict, and Rodolfo must defend and stand in for his idea of creating the butterfly. The Butterfly Workshop is thus also a book on creativity, team spirit and originality.

Inspired by this book, sixty children of the Leipzig elementary school „Clara Schumann“ created their very own dance theater production. From the very beginning, the third and fourth graders, supported by professional musicians from the school of music and arts "Clara Schumann", were responsible for every artistic detail. They were actors, dancers, musicians, screenplay writers, directors and stage designers. Under the artistic guidance of Aristides Strongylis they also composed the music for the stage production themselves.

Each child picked a character or task to work on, diving deeply into it, shaping and developping it according to his or her own ideas. Thus the text, the choreography, the music and the stage design were devised and created by the children, in constant interaction with the other children's task groups and the mentoring team. Finally the dialogues that originated in improvisation, the ideas and movements, and last not least the music were written down in a collectively devised screenplay. The teaching staff involved took great care only to act as moderators in the creative process, enabling the children to realize their own creative ideas as freely as possible.

In Germany's nation-wide contest „Kinder zum Olymp“ the Butterfly Workshop was awarded first prize in the category grades 1-4 (elementary schools)! There is even a ten-minute video of the performance here.

Project direction: Uta Zimmermann (applied drama), Annett Paschke (choreography), Aristides Strongylis (composition), and Mona Enayat (stage design, props)

First performance: June 14, 2008 at the Leipzig Centraltheater

la mia opera – The Children’s Opera

A fully-fledged opera, by kids only? That may sound odd, yet the kids of “la mia opera” have done exactly that. They devised, wrote, composed, and texted their very own opera. They designed and made stage settings and costumes, and after developping and rehearsing for months, they staged a three-act one-hour opera.

Entitled “Friendship Will Win“, the opera was played and acclaimed by audiences at Augustusburg near Chemnitz, Leipzig, Schwarzenberg, and Dresden.

Third and fourth graders that had little to no previous knowledge about opera got to know the artistic process involved in creating a musical work, to the extent of producing an opera good enough for stage. Artists and teachers from all areas, such as writing, composition, stage and design, assisted them in implementing their ideas. Within this, Aristides Strongylis was responsible for all questions related to composing, writing scores, and putting musical ideas on paper.

Learn more on the project’s website (German only).

Composing with children

In art classes children can realize their creativity by producing works of art. In music lessons they usually listen to and maybe play music themselves. But what about composing music? Is that not only for professionals who went to conservatory and learned how to compose? Music composition workshops for children prove that children indeed can compose music.

In these courses, kids learn how to express their creativity by translating it into music. Basics of musical theory and artistic play are the fundamental parts of the course. Each child is given the opportunity to create and develop musical ideas according to his or her own personality. The aim of the course is to enable the children to play with music, to create, to trigger their imagination and to show them how to express themselves through music as a language of its own.

At the end of the course, the students will present their work in a public concert. Currently courses are being held in Leipzig at the Clara Schumann elementary school and at the Thomasschule.