Bethan's Blog: Working with Citylit's Percussion Orchestra

In May, Corali worked with City Lit's Percussion Orchestra on a special project. We started with a few rehearsals at Brixton House, then we visited City Lit twice to meet the orchestra. When we arrived, we introduced ourselves, and they explained what would happen. The project was about remembrance and how people with disabilities were killed by the nazis. We listened to the orchestra play, shared ideas, and it was really nice to meet them. 

In our PDC class, we listened to some orchestra music. With our eyes closed, we wrote down words or made drawings about how the music made us feel. We then shared what we had done and turned those ideas into movements. We played with the movements by making them bigger, repeating them, or changing directions. This helped us build the structure for the performance.

We went back to City Lit for more rehearsals with the orchestra. We looked at where people needed to stand and practiced the movements while the orchestra played, making sure everything worked together. 

The project was part of Simon Jarrett's research, and the theme was hard but important. Even though it was a difficult subject, the performance went really well.

We had a great audience, and the lighting was good. There were lots of people watching, and I really enjoyed performing with the Percussion Orchestra. They were great to work with. 

I’m happy I was part of this project, and I’m proud to have been involved in Simon’s research. In the end, I really enjoyed it.