Day Five--Bittersweet

The final lecture was presented by Michel and Maniela on the work they have done in a village in Romania.  They have connected with some teachers in the area and have guest taught music drama for students age 6-18 (I believe).  It was interesting watching the video clips of them working with these students and what type of lessons the students were able to achieve with relatively no prior music training.  This lecture also made me wonder why the American Orff-Schulwerk Organization is so huge with well trained teachers in comparison to other countries.   

Sonja's class began with a movement game using coasters where she inadvertently worked at getting us to think and move in 8 counts.  We followed this activity by shadowing in groups of four, and then creating an individual 8 beat rhythmic sound phrase.  We were then instructed to add movements to our 8 beat rhythmic sound phrase and then go back to our shadowing groups and teach it to our group.  In our groups we created a final 32 beat movement phrase using the ideas from our group, and as an entire class we performed this along with a whole class movement phrase in Rondo form.

Doris' class was centered on newspaper.  We improvised with different sounds using newspaper, created a skit using our newspaper, and then finished class by creating a newspaper movement with a partner.  I don't want to say too much about this lesson because I'm really thinking that I will share this at some point and I don't want to give it away.  She used a poem as the framework and we incorporated sound, drama, and moved in canon.

After class me and Joyce went to the City Center and did some shopping.  Neither one of us had much of a chance to do any shopping, so we went to some touristy stores, clothing stores, and chocolate stores. :)  

"International night" at the Orff Institute was from 7-9 that night, so we left in time to get back for that.  Anyone could share a folk song or folk dance from their country that night, and the U.S. represented!  Luann, a music teacher from Kentucky, and I presented "Alabama Gal".  Everyone seemed to love it!  I wish I would have had someone take pictures of everyone dancing, though.  

Afterwards my new friends and I went back to the city center for dinner.  However, most of the restaurants were closed by the time we got out there, so on our last night we ended up eating from a Bratwurst  stand.  It was actually really good, but we were hoping for a restaurant.  We made it back to the dorm by 1:30 and said our goodbye's.  :(

The day was definitely bittersweet.  I had such a great week of learning and a wonderful time hanging out with my new friends, but I guess all good things must come to an end.