Eighth Week

We decided to be ambitious with our plans for the next three weeks, and to begin new mini-projects in both Potočari and Skelani. We were delighted to learn this week that it should be possible for the Potočari kids to do a short performance of their work before the “Children’s Music Theatre” show on 12^th December (see event above). For this reason we chose “Pirates” as the theme of their new project, to get them into the spirit of the show. We devised a series of pirate and nautical themed activities including a physical warm-up in which we called out pirate commands which the children responded to with corresponding actions (“climb the rigging!/penjite se po mieže!”, “haul in the anchor!/puvocite sidro!” etc.). We used other pirate related games, including a listening activity in which the children had to learn 3 different pirate dances, each of which went with a different pirate tune (played by Lewis and I). We also sang a pirate song (in Bosnian) roughly translated from the famous “15 men on a dead man’s chest” shanty from RL Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The final part of our workshop focused on writing pirate lyrics, in two groups, which we will make into songs next week. The children worked very well today. We were very impressed by their concentration levels and enthusiasm for this new project, and we are very much looking forward to the last two weeks. We were also very pleased to be able to lead the majority of this workshop in Bosnian for the first time. We are very grateful to our tutor (Ms Mirzana Pasič) for helping with our pirate-related vocabulary.

In Skelani, our new mini-project is called “Interkulturalno Muzičko Putovanje” – the “Intercultural Musical Journey”. Our aim for the next three weeks is to sing a variety of songs from different countries and musical traditions. We would like the kids to get a feel for the musical characteristics of diverse musical styles and to learn a little about other countries and cultures. We have devised and presented this theme to the kids as an imaginary journey by river/sea, starting from Skelani, and travelling first to neighbouring Balkan countries, then further afield (in later weeks). Using a large map of the Balkans as a prop, this week we ‘visited’ and sang songs from Croatia (Sve ptičice iz gore) and Macedonia (Makedonsko devojće), and performed a traditional tune from Romania. (We also made an impromptu stop in Serbia – on the request of one of the kids!) We have suggested that they bring us suggestions of Bosnian songs they would like to sing/perform in following two weeks. During the second half of the session we composed as a group, the first verse of a new song (below), describing and drawing on the musical cultures we experienced today. We hope to add further verses in the following weeks, in contrasting musical styles.