York.. standardisation, city walls, sharing skills and Shiva!

I was in York last week for the annual Arts Award moderators' standardisation conference, combined for the second time with the Artsmark standardisation now that Trinity College run both award schemes. It's always interesting to notice the correlations between the conference themes and my own thinking/research practice. This year felt synchronistic, or 'on the ball' as Nick Beach, head of academic qualifications, spoke about the congruence between the arts awards and other Trinity programmes, and of what I heard to be the transdisciplinarity of the practice-based arts approach. Alice Young, head of arts awards, presented a live demo of the new ACE/Trinity online platform for young people to collate arts evidence, 'artsbox', with integrated Arts Award portfolio formatting. The conference this year was beautifully housed in the Royal York Hotel, with just enough time to squeeze in very-early-morning and late-night swim/sauna revivification, making the long days less tiring. But the flow of the conference and recognition of very different levels of engagement with the Arts Award was far more consultative and a genuine conversation between all parties than the previous year's event had been, and that too made for a worthwhile experience, more energising than draining. (It's now 10 years since the pilot, with which I was involved as Manager for the Wiltshire Youth Arts Partnership pilot hub.)

It was lovely to revisit places in the city that I remembered from my only other visit to York, as a ten-year-old with my Mum whilst Dad was at his first Bursar's conference at York University! The city walls were just as wonderful as I remembered, and I am heading South with ideas for city wall projects for Wincanton and other such wall-less places... perhaps an equivalent of beating the parish boundaries...?

The other reason for being up in York was an invitation from the York Clean Language Practice Group, which led to Jeni Edge and myself holding a day workshop on Clean Touch at the welcoming Millers Yard Positive Living Centre, for the group, on Saturday. This was our second full-day workshop, and the first time we have introduced people to 2 on 1 facilitation, which went down extremely well and was cited by several people as the highlight of the day. More feedback on the day will follow on our website, but for now, here's a comment from our host: "What a magical day yesterday was for me.  Thank you SO much for coming all that way to share your magic with us!  It feels like such a wonderful bringing together for me of the two paths I have trodden so far.....
Watching the two of you working together in your demonstrations was beautiful.  And it feels so possible for me to take forwards as a way of working with others. I thought the timing, pacing, structure, sense of safety worked wonderfully." (1/12/13: Updated website with full feedback from participants at the workshop. Hopefully this 'open source evaluation'  will be useful for other people wondering what Clean Touch might be... certainly one of the people at this workshop said they'd found reading the website informative and helped them decide/prepare to come along.)

I'd noticed a mysterious and rather beautifully eye-catching poster outside York Minster on my wanderings. Interest captured by the name 'Rudra' and strapline 'Emotive Flight', with the abstract spiral of colours, I went into the Minster to enquire, came away with a ticket for saturday evening's performance, and was not at all disappointed by what ensued. Manasamitra's Rudra combines traditional kathak movement with contemporary dance, traditional Indian instruments with contemporary soundtracks and vocal improvisation in a fantastic moving feast of colour sound movement and storytelling as Shiva was amazingly portrayed by Yorkshire dancer Alys North in this perfect setting in the Minster. Interesting post-show talk with Sonia Sabri (choreographer) and Sri Sriram (Musical director), and yummy aperetifs of samosas, aloo bhajis and fruit juice from a new Indian restaurant opening in York. A feast for all the senses :)

"RUDRA reverberates through the universe... a powerful force in the shape of Shiva that destroys evil and restores balance, this performance echoes the cycle of peace, disturbance, love and lament.

Manasamitra resurrects ancient Indian mythology with an exciting fusion of contemporary music and dance. Choreographer Sonia Sabri, working in contemporary kathak brings together four regional dancers with contemporary and Indian dance backgrounds to create RUDRA against an original musical score performed live. RUDRA will offer audiences a new experience of Indian arts."