Art, storytelling and dance

Our ‘Dancing the Clay: Ceramics by Tony Lattimer’ exhibition gave us the perfect opportunity to work with three local primary schools on projects involving dance, storytelling and art.

Our Education Officer worked with 45 Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 pupils from Hyde Park Infants School, 30 Year 5/6 pupils from Knowle Primary School and 250 children from Foundation to Year 6 from St. Andrews C of E Primary School in connection with the exhibition.

The children from Hyde Park and Knowle Primary enjoyed dance sessions in the gallery with local performance-based company, Attik Dance. The children and the adults who were supervising them really enjoyed their sessions and learnt a great deal. The children then went back to their schools and performed their dances for their fellow pupils.

Meanwhile, St Andrews’ pupils enjoyed some gallery sessions with professional storyteller, David Heathfield. David worked with a number of different classes – weaving a story based on Tony’s pots which resembled the Merry Maidens standing stones in Penwith, Cornwall.

David’s sessions are always interactive and the children were able to join in as well as listen. Once back at school, each class wrote their own story inspired by the exhibition. This was followed up with some additional work with the Year 3 pupils who came to the gallery to sketch the pots. They were then treated to a visit by our Education Officer, who worked with them on an art-based session, using clay to make smaller versions of Tony’s pots.