We
do not teach young people how to be on stage for the sake
of being actors or dancers. We do offer young people a disciplined
learning environment in which they will learn drama and dance
skills from skilled peer leaders and professional tutors.
There is no selection or audition. Lack of skill and experience
of drama and dance may be the best point of departure on what
could be a two year journey with KIC, longer if you have the
dedication and creativity to be a member of the peer leadership
team. Beginners are given time to show their energy and enthusiasm.
They will be expected to be restless, questioning, fun and
committed. They will know if they should stay or go.
When you’re young you’ve got attitude and energy
to burn. You’ve probably never really heard yourself
saying what you feel about what gets you down or lifts you
up. KIC training is about you becoming more visible in a project
that uses street dance, contact improvisation, video, music
and physical imagery to tell your story.
The KIC training environment is safe, trusting, pleasureable
and charged with the expectation of personal discovery. We
play games, make beat-based choreography, make movement fantasies
with no beat, tell each other stories, sometimes with bodies
and no sound, other times with only sounds. We tell our stories
in physical images and create characters through physical
movement, only using words when absolutely necessary. We call
these things ‘skill-frames’, but you will need them
when you are put in the dark and all you are given is the
freedom to make physical shapes, use a precious object and
a personal statement as your ID card to make yourself visible
in an unfamiliar space.
The creative dark is a thrilling place to be, especially after
a while when the ‘frames’ you have been making for
your story are filled up with your words, your moves. A while
longer and you will have a sequence like video - words, pictures
and movement. You are rewarded when your story comes out of
the dark like a Polaroid coming into focus.
David
Calvert.
