1st Mobility: Greece Teachers visited our partner school in Greece!

Three teachers from The Brook school travelled to Greece and met the partners of our Erasmus+ project "Music, Drama & Movement". The Greek school is located in Rafina, a city with a beautiful harbour, close to Athens. Teachers participated in school activities related to music, drama, and movement, whilst they discussed and planned the shared activities of the project . The vice Mayor of Rafina visited the school in order to meet all the educators across Europe and a meeting took place at the Mayor's office in order to discuss the future of the project.

All partners from U.K., Greece, Spain, France and Sweden with the vice Mayor of Rafina on the first day at the Greek school. We visited the classes where the pupils prepared some music activities for us.

Pupils from 4th primary school of Rafina demonstrated traditional games at the playground. We had the opportunity to see the similarities of the games between different cultures, for instance, one game was similar to duck, duck, goose.

Pupils demonstrated movement games based on collaboration and trust. They were working in pairs, so some pupils had the role of the driver and the other with closed eyes was the car. The driver had to use 4 speeds (a leader was announcing the speed) and the driver had to follow the rules. The pupil-car had to trust and leave the driver to guide him/her. When there was an "accident" between two cars, the pairs had to leave the game.

A great art workshop where all partners explored different ancient Greek drama masks and later they made their own following teacher's instructions as well as using their imagination. The art teacher of the Greek school showed to all partners the Greek ancient masks that were used in theatrical performances. Educators explored a variety of masks that were not used only at theatrical performances but in other occasions too, such as, the mask for dead people.

A theatrical performance based on Homer's Greek Mythology "Odyssey and Sirens" and "Persephone's abduction". Pupils acted, danced and sang songs related to the play, linking the mythology with the contemporary and folk music. The background photos and videos with English subtitles of the play was helpful in order the European partners to understand the plot of the story.

Pupils performed a traditional Greek dance before encouraging all partners to join in. The dances was based on traditional songs around Greece (Macedonia, Thrace, Cyclades islands, Crete) as well as the famous Syrtaki dance.

All partners visited the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments and had the opportunity to explore the music history of Greece and to listen a variety of musical styles from the Greek Folk music such as Rebetiko, as well as, folk music from Thrace, Central Macedonia and Crete that established the music history of Greece. We listened a variety and very special rhythmic patterns of the Greek folk music, and we explored items that were used as instruments such as: wooden spoons and little glasses.

We visited the Acropolis Museum with a tour guide and we walked in to the old town of Athens before visiting the Museum of Greek Folk Musical Instruments. In Acropolis museum we learned the history of Acropolis and Parthenon, we saw the Caryatids sculptures as well as the marbles of Parthenon.

A very interesting visit was the one at the music school of Pallini Athens. We had the opportunity to see musical samples of pupils practising. An orchestra at the big hall was practising the soundtrack of the musical La la land.

Another music sample was the traditional one from Crete. Students were practising the traditional carols from Crete with instruments such as: recorder, oud, laouto, tzouras, Cretan lyra and vocals from students too.

In the next room there was a third sample practising a classical aria with a Soprano singer and orchestra. Students reading theirs scores where working on synchronization and dynamic.