Tanec Praha z.ú. invites you to an educational and creative seminar designed for dance and music teachers working with children, teachers of art schools and elementary schools and students of relevant fields interested in working with children.

The seminar is part of the Dance for Schools project, which has been brining creative movement lessons to schoolchildren since 2006, and which schools can include, for example, in the supplementary subject Dance and Movement Education (DME). The seminars do not ensure the qualification of DME instructors, but focus primarily on additional knowledge and new inspirations that can enrich teaching and creative work in general among a larger group of children.

This time you can look forward to inspiring personalities Kateřina Šobáňová from the Continuo Theatre, Lenka Pospíšilová from the Czech Orff Society and dancer, choreographer and teacher Mirka Eliášová. We will deal with the topic of touch in space and time and the use of body percussion or the game of boomwhackers in the physical education of children. Mirka Eliášová and I will focus on the specifics of working with a group of boys. We will be happy to introduce the Dance for Schools program in the form of a demonstration lesson or discussion.

Program:

Saturday, 27.11

Kateřina Šobáňová – theatre artist, actress, director, teacher, member of the Continuo Theatre and program director of the Švestkový dvůr cultural centre

Touch in space and time
Touch is the primary source of knowledge of the surrounding world and interpersonal communication. It is the bearer of humaneness and humanity, or, conversely, brutality and fear. And it is precisely the questions that stand between these extreme poles and form the basic archetypes of human existence that will be the topic of the theatre movement workshop, which will be led by Kateřina Šobáňová, a lecturer and actress at the international theatre ensemble Divadlo Continuo. During the workshop, participants will look for stories that take place in each of us through physical contact and material. The main focus will be on the perception of movement that comes from the centre of the body, its axes and impulses that respond to the partner's pressure or tension. Working with paper will then be an inspiration for the body as one of the possibilities for grasping the principles of movement in theatre and teaching activities.

Sunday, 28.11

Lenka Pospíšilová – chairwoman of the Czech Orff Society, elementary school teacher, where she introduced classes with extended music education, lecturer of educational seminars for teachers not only in the Czech Republic but also in Europe and worldwide, http://www.orff.cz/

Body percussion and boomwhackers in the movement education of children
Body percussion is one of the oldest musical arts in the world, in which one's own body is used to create sounds. Body percussion combines music and dance into one. Playing the body develops a sense of rhythm, perception, coordination, cooperation and communication.

Let's play with boowhackers! You will get acquainted with the various possibilities of using these coloured tubes in the music-movement education of children. We will try to play some melodies, but above all we will discover the possibilities of improvisation, harmonic accompaniment to songs and the realization of their notation. Nor will we forget active listening, during which boomwhackers can also become part of a symphony orchestra.

Mirka Eliášová – dancer, choreographer and teacher at the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU), will focus on the specifics of working with a group of boys, especially on movement games, developing cooperation, using objects and tools to develop creative movement and musicality.

Instructors:

Mgr. Kateřina Šobáňová

theatre artist, actress, director, teacher. She graduated from the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University in Brno (primary school teaching with a focus on literature and drama teaching). She then graduated from the Faculty of Theatre at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (Department of Educational Drama). After graduating, she worked as a primary school teacher and led a seminar at the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague. Since 2008 she has been a member of the international theatre group Divadlo Continuo (Švestkový Dvůr, Malovice), where she participated in the creation of about 20 performances. In addition to acting and directing, she uses her many years of experience gained in working with the body, movement, material, puppet, voice, sound, live music, visual styling and their mutual overlaps in teaching activities. As a lecturer, she has been leading workshops for children, students and adults in the Czech Republic and abroad for many years. Since 2020, she has also been the program director of the Švestkový Dvůr artistic, pedagogical and cultural centre.

PaeDr. Lenka Pospíšilová 

Chairwoman of the Czech Orff Society. She graduated from the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague, and completed an internship with Pavel Jurkovič, with whom she later taught at the same school. He introduced her to the Orff principles of music education teaching. She was a tutor in movement education at the State Conservatory in Prague, and participated in a summer seminar at the Orff Institute in Salzburg. Today she teaches at an elementary school in Prague, where she has introduced classes with extended music education, founded a children's orchestra and a parent choir. Since 1991, she has been leading educational seminars for teachers throughout the Czech Republic, Europe, America and Asia. She is a permanent lecturer at international seminars organized by the Austrian Carl Orff Foundation. http://www.orff.cz/

Mgr. Bohumíra Eliášová, PhD. 

Dancer, teacher, choreographer. A graduate in the field of choreography at the Dance Department of the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (HAMU), where she also defended her dissertation and currently works as a teacher. She has created more than 20 original choreographies, collaborated on opera performances and participated in the creation of four dance films. Since 2008 she has been collaborating with the Berg Orchestra on site-specific performances to live music by contemporary composers. Her works are presented at festivals in the Czech Republic and abroad and she has won many awards.

She is also engaged in creative activities for children as an elementary school art teacher and a movement workshops instructor. She is the author of the children's interactive performances The World of Paper, Momo and Škatulení, which was co-produced by the PONEC Theatre.