STRAVINSKY HIP HOP

Animation & Artistic Event

implemented as part of the LABYRINTH EVENT 2012 educational program
September-December 2012

The project is a comprehensive artistic and community-oriented activity intended for youth and for the local educational environment. Its main element consists of “Stravinsky Hip-hop” – an educational story based on Igor Stravinsky’s “A Soldier’s Tale”. The event is accompanied by animation and educational activities in junior and senior high schools.

The idea was born as part of the 2012 edition of the Labyrinth Event – an educational program implemented by the Music is for Everyone Foundation in the headquarters of the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra. The program is financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and by the Capital City of Warsaw. Its partners are the Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, the Mazowieckie Centre for Arts and Culture, the Mazowieckie Local Authority Centre of Teacher Development and the National Audiovisual Institute.

The project has two fundamental objectives and their implementation is intended to provide a positive feedback effect. On one hand the Event is oriented at the artistic education of youth, increasing interest in the arts and their own artistic activity: these objectives will be achieved through various promotional activities with the participation of students. On the other hand, the project provides for social effects which are typical for cultural education, with a positive impact for both the local community and for the development of a pro-community attitude among youth. The Event is intended to activise the school environment around innovative forms of general artistic education. The project will achieve the additional effect of expanding the knowledge about the musical preferences of youth and its attitude to music and music education.

One of the Event’s important premises is the view that artistic education should apply to all children and young people, not only for the most talented, as it has proven positive impact on their general development, educational capacity and social skills. It is especially important for us to reach children in deprived environments. Cultural exclusion of young people is often the effect of a missing impulse to develop their own creativity, leaving them alone to passively consume products created by the media industry.

ELEMENTS of the PROJECT

1. “Stravinsky hip-hop” – and educational performance
2. Hip-hop dance workshops
3. Musical and promotional event
4. Survey of youth preferences and musical needs

This year, we will conduct our promotional and community event in three versions, in three different environments in the Praga Południe district of the city of Warsaw.
One of the editions of the project means the implementation of all four of the above elements in cooperation with a single school environment (one school or several schools located in close vicinity to each other). Everyone will be able to participate in the event, but beforehand every participant will be able to select one of three proposed tasks (task no. 2, 3, 4)

“Stravinsky Hip-hop” educational event
The “Stravinsky Hip-hop” event, based on Stravinsky’s “The Soldier’s Tale”, is intended to be performed in places which are not typical for theatre performances. This includes schools. This assumption presumes that performance and technical devices are kept to a minimum.

The music is arranged for a reduced ensemble of performers (clarinet – Adam Mazurek, violin – Michał Lisiewicz, piano – Emilia Sitarz, percussion – Magdalena Kordylasińska and one computer). The performance also includes: Dariusz Jakubowski – actor (narrator) and two dancers: Joanna Ziemczyk (who also created the choreography) and Szymon Osiński. The performance also features young hip-hop dancers. The stage set is frugal, limited to props and lighting.

In its literary aspect, the work is a morality play referring to categories of good and evil, consumerism, loyalty, and other issues important for young people.
The coexistence of the ingenious music of Stravinsky and hip-hop is intended to serve dialogue, to arouse minds and artistic sensitivity of young people, while hip-hop dance is to provide an opportunity for an expression of attitudes. Each performance will feature a group of school youth prepared by dancers in a series of workshops and participating in specific fragments of the performance, each lasting several minutes.

Hip-hop dance workshops
One important premise of the “Stravinsky hip-hop” performance is its interactive aspect. The producers have prepared a number of fragments of several minutes each for youth to dance in. This creates a task to be completed during hip-hop dance workshops for students of schools participating in the project.
The workshops will be run by professional dancers together with young hip-hop dancers. We propose the duration of the workshops to last 10 standard length classes (5 x 2 classes). An interesting and positive effect may be achieved by conducting the workshop outside of the school, in the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, which can present its own cultural proposal for the youth, inspiring them to participate in the Centre’s cultural activities.

Music and Promotion
The following elements will be implemented in each event in subsequent editions of the project:

• assembling of a group of youths who have declared their interest in the promotion of culture and sociology
• joint development of a two month action plan, together with the promoters,
• awareness and promotional activities in schools and the local environment, conducted by youths,
• participation of the youth in the organisation of the “Stravinsky Hip-hop” performance,
• joint documentation of the project,
• organisation of a debate to conclude the project.

Sociological surveys
Musical preferences and attitudes of youth with respect to music and musical education – surveys will be conducted by young volunteers in cooperation with professional sociologists. The survey tools will be prepared so as not to cause any difficulty for the students, but to enable continuation of the surveys in other environments in Warsaw or in the Mazowsze region.