By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
PRIMARY school students have started a monumental work that can only do good for young minds – and their dance moves.
Members of acclaimed theatre company Rawcus – with and without disabilities – recently led the first of several dance-and-movement workshops with Fountain Gate Primary School Year 5 students.
The vision is for all the school’s students to come together on stage with Dandenong Valley Special Developmental School students for a 500-member dance spectacular entitled “In Our Shoes”.
Fountain Gate primary principal Jenny Duggan describes it as a celebration of the “beauty and complexity of humanity”.
In the meantime, there will be much toil. In further workshops, Rawcus will help the students give birth to original music and to express ideas through movement.
The Year 5 students will then teach the dance moves, the sounds and stories to the rest of the school ahead of the final production.
Project manager Amy Harrington said it gave students a soaring experience to work with theatre doyens.
“It’s such a different experience to what they’re used to.
“You don’t get the chance to do that sort of movement and performing arts.”
She said the students also learnt much about human diversity working alongside Rawcus’s performers.
Rawcus has won much critical acclaim and awards with its stirring works featuring performers with and without disabilities.
It has featured in events such as the New Wave and Melbourne International Arts Festival, partnered with groups such as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Chambermade Opera and Restless Dance Company.
The project was funded by a grant from the philanthropic CASS Foundation.
