SÍLVIA REAL – An Artist inside the Classroom

Building dramatic expression in the classroom context – from the partnership between artists and teachers.

A practical workshop focussing on the importance of the partnership between the teacher/class and artists in the classroom context, in a joint reflection on how long-term work experience can produce changes in students’ learning and in their construction as citizens.
Combining the teacher’s pedagogical and academic training with the artist’s experience and training and the students’ eagerness for knowledge and growth as a fundamental step towards a strong and rich experience for all.

Drawing on choreographer Sílvia Real’s vast pedagogical and artistic experience of working regularly and long-term with children and teenagers between the ages of 6 and 14, this training takes place within the framework of Gymnasium, a project that proposes the implementation in various schools in Lagos of a regular programme of training and artistic experimentation aimed at children and young people throughout each school cycle, and takes place in parallel with an atelier that the artist will develop with a 3rd year class at the Escola Básica de Stª. Maria.

Sílvia Real began her studies in Classical Dance with Luna Andermatt. She studied at the London Studio Centre, the London Contemporary Dance School and the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. She has performed with various choreographers, including João Fiadeiro, Vera Mantero, Miguel Pereira, Francisco Camacho and Filipa Francisco. She teaches regularly and was a lecturer at the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema (2007/2011). In 1997, together with musician Sérgio Pelágio, he created Real Pelágio Productions, where he directed several shows, including the Casio Tone, Subtone and Tritone trilogy.

Because they consider this to be a basic principle of their work, Real Pelágio Productions has been running workshops for children since 1998, stimulating their artistic sensibility. In 2013, following on from this, they set up the Teatro da Voz Artistic Training Centre (formerly Teatro da Graça/Lisbon) coordinated by Sílvia Real, in close partnership with the Voz do Operário School and EIRA. She has been working with children on a regular basis since 2012: Orquestra Geração Project (2011/13), Escola Voz do Operário (since 2011), among other projects. She is artistic director of Grupo 23: silêncio! This collective of children, teenagers and adults premiered its first show E se tudo fosse amarelo? at Culturgest in 2015 and then toured several cities. In 2015, Grupo 23: silêncio! published the book/DVD Isto é uma cocriação!: anti-manual for artistic creation in childhood.

Simone Andrade is a human rights consultant who has been exploring and designing creative, participatory and experiential learning methods to translate human rights into tools for action and social transformation. Bárbara Ramires is a primary school teacher and Pedagogical Director of the 1st cycle at A Voz do Operário School (Lisbon). They collaborate with Sílvia real in the collective Grupo 23: silêncio!