Drums, debate and devising: Music and Drama Education Expo 2021
Zeena Rasheed
Friday, October 1, 2021
The much-anticipated Music and Drama Education Expo 2021 was a hit! Zeena Rasheed gives us the lowdown on what went on in the CPD hustle and bustle
On Friday 24 September, at an elegant new venue – The Business Design Centre, London – the ninth Music and Drama Education Expo opened. Live and back in the room, we got together with a shared purpose. Everyone I spoke to was thrilled to be together, sharing professional learning and inspirational experiences with like-minded others.
This was a well-attended but not rammed Expo, and several attendees thought nervousness around gatherings, school infection rates, and the date change might all be factors. I missed Friday; but the programme was exciting and well balanced, offering theory, speakers, and active engagement. Mark Philips represented Ofsted, exploring substance in Music Education, there were sessions on educational recovery and the arts, and on jazz, storytelling, commedia, and disability.
Engaging and reflective sessions
On Saturday, Ulla Weber's joyful Feast of Gathering Songs had a full room dancing and singing in three languages – all grinning and warmed up before 10am.
I found the symposium on assessment in Drama helpful, engaging and even funny, thanks to the levity and warmth of the panel. Assessment in any subject is always important, but Drama, with no national framework, is open to confusion and a plethora of interpretations. The guidance to keep looking for clarity in Drama assessment models, to make them a useful, true reflection of what learners can do, was reassuring and smart.
Tashi Gore, working with Jess Thorpe (writers of the brilliant Beginner's Guide to Devising Theatre) was an enthralling listen. The photos of young people at Junction 25 performing genuinely original, quality theatre were stunning. Gore talked about having no lead roles, co-constructing work, empowering the youngsters to make their company a place where everyone finds their voice and investigates their world, through vibrant, bold theatre. Inspirational women doing inspirational work.
It was good to see familiar and new faces there: Karen Latto got set text up on its feet, Adam Milford opened doors to creative careers, Ollie Tunmer from Beat Goes On created captivating looping rhythms with his audience. The Paper Birds and Frantic Assembly were demonstrating and delivering, and there was music through the day. Exam boards and publishers also offered free pens and support!
Highlights and reservations
The presentation from Carefree was my five-star moment. I was expecting a seminar on how/why the arts therapeutically benefit vulnerable children, and I got that. Fabulously, Annie Sheen and Kate Barden delivered this with giddy theatricality and cerebral fireworks, white coats, a blow-up doll, toys and winning energiser games. They modelled their values: we started a room of curious strangers, and ended a team, wishing we worked with them and their huge hearts in Cornwall!
Criticism would be small: programming, staff, over 70 workshops and no-cost inspirational opportunities all around were excellent. The atmosphere was quieter, but warm. Maybe the Fireside Chats needed better acoustics – drumming worked over café hubbub, but an interview less well. Maybe some way of showcasing drama and dance students as well as musicians could be considered?
Championing the value of the arts
I was in two minds about going to Expo – the travel, the Saturday, all the stuff not done. I remembered the weirdness of 2020, glorious for content, but accompanied by an inescapable sense of something malevolent approaching. The world shut a few days later. This was no fault of Expo, but oddly stuck in my head. Going was a good call, for me.
Expo is a dent in our limited free time, and your SLT may or may not support it. However, for many arts educators and facilitators, this is a rare, valuable chance to be immersed in our specialisms. We can meet and share, in a space where the value of the arts is championed, where expert colleagues freely share insight, with opportunities for genuine subject specific development. It's a chance to enrich our practice and experiment with new perspectives.
Expo offers an antidote to the siege experience that being a performing arts teacher can be, especially for drama, inexplicably left out of the foundation subject stable. After explaining pedagogy to a non-specialist observer, planning for every year (possibly alone), teaching a full timetable, delivering enrichment and embracing your inner Doug Lemov, Expo provides a chance worth taking. You can get expert feedback on a new lesson methodology, consolidate your understanding, gain nourishment and insight, be creative and play, challenge yourself, and be inspired by passionate artists and teachers – all for free.
Maybe I'll see you next year?
