Parallel Performative Workshops

At Stadtgalerie Salzburg, Lehen, Thinc has been running artistic workshops for 11-15 year olds. These give them an opportunity to step into several professional artistic processes as well as the opportunity to practice communicating in both English and German.  German for many is their second language with English as their third.  Josef Dorninger hosted Tagtool workshops and Griet Vanden Houden hosted dance workshops.  Young teens from all around Lehen were given the chance to learn techniques and steps as professional artists do, but to fuse them with their own ideas by merging  with the exhibition: Salon Zeichnung.  By running workshops parallel to each other, the young teens were able to see the link between bringing figurative illustration to life through dance, as well as animation.  The components of Tagtool, Dance and  pen, pencil and charcoal illustrations within the gallery were linked through concept.  The young teens interpretations of these illustrations were transposed to both ipad animation and dance. Whilst the Tagtool group were drawing with Tagtool, a projected colourful frame for their own content upon the gallery wall, the dance group were practicing the choreographic frame.  The choreographed dance that had been developed together with young teens and professional choreographers Griet and Mirjam, provided them a frame so that the young teens could find their own unique interpretation of their favourite illustration hanging within the gallery.   Like their peers who had collaborated with Mirjam in a previous workshop, they were asked to choose their favourite illustration and find an adjective that describes the emotion that they felt when they saw that picture.  Once they had found their emotional response, they transposed that emotion into a movement. This movement, that they created themselves, was unified with the choreography that had been developed with Mirjam and Griet. The young teens were able to create their own figurative illustration, like those hanging all around them, but through a different form: dance. 
       Meanwhile Tagtool group, after illustrating a colourful frame with their ipads and projecting this frame live onto the galarie walls, like the other wooden frames, were able to create their own Tagtool illustration and animation.  Some young teens from the group based their Tagtool drawings on the illustrations that surrounded them in the gallery.  Others in the group were influenced by the dance group beside them. Finally all these elements merged, as initially they were linked through concept.  This created a vibrant holistic learning space, where creativity flowed and learning became an exciting and pleasurable experience. Several times at the end of the workshop the young teens looked around excitedly asked: "When can we do it again"?



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