Opportunities at Akademi | Open audition for SEN production

Open auditions: 25 Oct 2019

Akademi are seeking 2 dancers to participate in the research and develop of a new live, interactive performance for children and young people (aged 5–18 years) with profound autistic spectrum disorders and complex needs, including social, emotional and mental health issues. This new project is sponsored by The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust.

Dancers should have a background in South Asian and/or contemporary dance forms with at least 2 years professional experience.

Background

Akademi currently run dance and movement workshops exploring creative means of communication and expression within three special needs schools; Papillion House, Cambridge School and Manor School. The schools cater for young people with profound autistic spectrum disorders and complex needs, including social, emotional and mental health issues, speech, language and communication needs and learning and cognition difficulties. We now wish to directly address the lack of autism-informed performance work, ensuring these young people’s voices and creative ideas are reflected in the work.

The dancers will spend time in the studio with the choreographer to explore movement ideas observed in these schools and begin to develop material toward an informal sharing with SEN teachers, parents and carers. This sharing will take the form of a presentation with movement based on the children’s responses, illustrating the beginnings of sensitive, appropriate movement language, and should speak to both the young people that inspired the work and all other audience members. Feedback from the sharing will ensure that we shape the theatre sensitively and maintain a high-quality artistic experience. This will then inform further phases of research and development.