The workshop will begin with the tutors giving a welcome introduction and a brief history of the Sound of Movement project. The tutors will outline the structure of the day, concepts, and learning goals. The tutors will then give a short performance - an extract from their show highlighting these concepts.

Workshop participants will then take part in a group warm up with ice breaker activities building a collaborative energy. This will be followed by group exercises teaching rhythm and time-keeping skills. Complexity of this session will be adjusted dependant on participants ability. 

Participants will encounter various listening and responding tasks and have an active role in discovering how different styles, textures, rhythms, and pitches within music can influence movement. This will develop interpretation and creativity. 

Participants will be guided to engage in discussions and activities right from the start to build compositional and choreographic ideas. Musicians and dancers will then split into two groups. This session will be aimed at developing their work specific to music or dance but will maintain communication between the two. 

Musicians Group:

Harmony and ensemble session. The level of this class will be adapted depending on participants current ability.

The group will collaboratively compose a piece of music which will be used to perform with the dancers later in the day. If needed, a framework of a pre-determined chord progression will be used, with the group composing the melody. Participants will be taught key harmony and compositional skills during this process. They will also learn how to improvise over their composition; being taught improvisational techniques allowing them to broaden and develop their knowledge on rhythm, harmony, structure. Participants will also be taught skills on how to play effectively in an ensemble within this style.

Participants will take it in turns leading the group, and suggesting ideas. Focus will also be on ensemble playing - looking at each musicians roles and responsibilities within an ensemble.

The session will conclude with a discussion on how we can incorporate the composition and improvisation with dancers in preparation for the next session, and instructions given on how to be guided by dancers movement, and how to guide dancers with what they play.

The session shall end with participants having learnt compositional and improvisational harmony, which they will have used to create a composition and then be able to perform improvised solos on.

Dancers Group:

Participants will engage in creating contemporary dance phrases exploring dynamics, texture, and artistry; exploring our methodology of improvisation- communicating whilst challenging our relationship with music as dancers. 

Dancers will work as one or multiple groups on choreographic tasks. With guidance from the SoM choreographers they will work on creating a structure of choreography and improvisation. Throughout, communication with musicians will be key in influencing our choreography and working together.

The aim will be to establish a choreographic outcome from our session intertwined with the musicians work and understand how we can leave space for the musician's work to lead us and vice versa. 

The tasks and complexity of the outcome will be adjusted to be inclusive of all individuals and experiences and we aim to create an environment that builds confidence to be bold creatively and share ideas.

Final Session:

Groups will begin to bring their work together. A collaborative outcome will be formed consisting of a composition, choreography, and performance based interactive improvisation using the SoM methodology. This session will always look different depending on the outcomes of previous sessions.