After four very long weeks glued to my computer, to say I was overjoyed to step back into my comfort zone and start teaching again is an understatement. To be fair, although I underestimated quite how much work setting up an online teaching platform would be, I did find the challenge of it a welcome distraction from Covid-19. (Although you can never fully escape its presence). So rather than let it bring me down I used it as a motivator; to make me work harder to get Arts Inside finished and out there. I truly believe that the arts is an incredible outlet for people to take advantage of in a time where we need distractions, escapism, positivity and a sense of unity. I also need to protect my charity Arts Insight, which I have worked tirelessly for the last 10 years to build and I absolutely refuse to allow it to become another victim of the coronavirus.
Last week after the most amazing support from Kevin Martin my wonderful website designer, Harper James Solicitors for ensuring all my online safeguarding was watertight legally and Gary Forbes for designing my artwork and promo videos, I was ready to launch into my first week of online teaching aka 'Arts Inside' was born.
We are all adapting to the 'new normal' and I couldn't believe how overwhelming my sense of trepidation was to stay in my slippers and talk to myself and my laptop rather than come to a school or house to deliver a class. It's probably because I don't see the live streams being like that at all, as I can really sense the children in front of me doing all the exercises with me. Call it muscle memory, call it a vivid sense of imagination, whatever it is, it has been a tonic and i've loved every minute of it. To then have people send me real time films has simply validated what I hoped for and imagined this could be and I'm so grateful to everyone who has signed up, got involved and helped me start to build the foundations of our creative community.
As we move through week two, I'm thrilled to have a weekly small group session of students who are working on an original script, this group is made up of a combination of children from two schools in Warwickshire. I am also guiding two students through LAMDA training in solo sessions which is incredibly fulfilling and a very productive use of their extra time. I will also continue to deliver my three live streaming sessions to include stimulus for independent work to a closed Facebook group each week.
As the days go on I am, of course, so keen to reach more families and through Arts Inside inject some creativity and fun into people's homeschooling schedules as and when they need it. I am aware that my words can only tell part of the story, so I wanted to share in film glimpses of Arts Inside's first week.
The Monday Motivator: https://youtu.be/umWEzs-cmNA
A Small Group Session: https://youtu.be/1u_nKdTtEJ4
All week the children work on their Monday Mission, which last week (to celebrate the Queens 93rd Birthday) was: ' If you were a Queen or a King for a day, what would that day be like?' The children then have four days to produce a piece of performance art using the 'mission' as the stimulus..the Top 5 are then shown in 'Friday Footlights' streamed live to the closed Facebook group, after which the community get to vote for their Artist of the Week! Here is last weeks Top 5 performance pieces: https://youtu.be/bX6HTmLeI04 Can you guess who won?
Please get in touch if you want your family to get involved by emailing admin@arts-insight.com
All the very best and stay safe,
Laura
Founder and Artistic Director of Arts Insight
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